Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. Speaker in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Private Bills (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with),—

Mr. SPEAKER: Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bills, referred on the Second Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:

Bournemouth Gas and Water Bill.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Gateshead Gas Bill.

Cornwall Electric Power Bill.

Bills committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — PETROL RATIONING (TAXIMETER-CABS).

Mr. John Wilmot: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware of the acute distress among taximeter-cab drivers occasioned by their petrol ration; whether he will consider increasing this ration; and, if necessary, take steps to tighten the regulations in other quarters?

The Secretary for Mines (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): Apart from representations of a general character which I have received from the hon. Member, I have no information in regard to any such distress. As he will appreciate, the governing considerations in fixing the petrol allowances for taxi-cabs must be the requirements of the public and the need for economising the use of motor spirit. I have no reason to think that, judged by these standards, the present ration is inade-

quate. Every effort is being made to enforce the strict application of the petrol rationing scheme.

Mr. Wilmot: While thanking the hon. Gentleman for his reply, may I ask whether he is aware that a large number of taximeter-cab drivers are on public relief, as they are unable to make a living on the present ration; that the demand for cabs at the London railway termini is unsatisfied; and that if the shortage of cabs leads to an increase in the number of private cars on the road, the amount of petrol used will be increased?

Mr. Lloyd: At the beginning of the war, about 3,500 taxi-cabs were requisitioned for the London Auxiliary Fire Service and there was in consequence a shortage of cabs for ordinary purposes, but I understand that hundreds of these cabs have already been released and that a great many more will be released in the near future.

Mr. J. J. Davidson: In view of the representations made by many cab-owning firms in the provinces, does the Minister consider that the small ration which they are getting to-day is justified, as compared with the ration which is given to other users of petrol?

Mr. Lloyd: That is a different Question.

Sir Frank Sanderson: Would it meet the case to increase the fares?

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY.

RETAIL PRICES.

Mr. Ammon: asked the Secretary for Mines whether the permitted increase in the price of coal of 2d. per cwt. in two cwt. lots and less, as set out in L.F.O. Circular No. 49, dated 20th February, is additional to similar increases operating prior to that date; if so, is he aware that such increase means a total extra charge to the small consumer of 5s. to 6s. per ton; and on what grounds is such increase justified?

Mr. Lloyd: The circular to which the hon. Member refers authorised local fuel overseers to increase retail coal prices by 2d. per cwt. as a temporary measure. The increase is to operate only in areas where deliveries are restricted to 2 cwts. per week, and only while this restriction continues. The present increase was


authorised after careful examination in my Department, and represents the increased costs of distribution under present conditions arising out of the shortage of supplies and the necessity for restricting deliveries to small quantities.

Mr. Ammon: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that this means that coal is costing as much as 3s. 5d. a cwt. in very poor districts and that deliveries are being delayed in order that the coal may be delivered in small quantities?

Mr. Lloyd: It has not been a question of delaying but of delivering so as to secure a fair and equitable distribution.

Mr. Paling: Why should the extra cost always be put on those people who are least able to bear it? If it is necessary that there should be any extra cost, why is it not properly distributed?

Mr. Lloyd: The men who distribute coal in these small quantities are paid on piece rates, and unless this arrangement had been made, supplies could not have been maintained.

PITS (CLOSING).

Mr. James Griffiths: asked the Secretary for Mines the number of collieries that have been closed since the outbreak of war, their location, particulars of numbers employed and the output of those mines; whether owners of collieries are obliged to notify him of the intention to close down collieries; and whether, in any instances, he intervenes to prevent collieries being closed at the present time?

Mr. Lloyd: As regards the first part of the Question, it is not desirable that this information should be published in wartime; but I can assure the hon. Member that my Department looks most carefully into all cases of the threatened closing of pits of substantial size with a view to preventing it if possible.

COALITE (PRICE).

Mrs. Adamson: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware that 14-pound bags of coalite are being retailed at 10d. per bag in certain districts in London; and if he intends to take action to stop this profiteering?

Mr. Lloyd: I am aware that in London the current retail price of coalite

is 10d. per bag of 14 pounds. The corresponding pre-war price was 9½d., the difference having been authorised by my Department in respect of increased costs of production and distribution. I would remind the hon. Member that the costs incidental to the retail distribution of this product in small quantities in bags are out of all proportion to those incurred in handling larger quantities.

Mrs. Adamson: Is the Minister aware of the high additional profit on the fixed price of coalite when it is retailed at these prices to the very poorest section of the community?

Mr. Lloyd: I shall be very glad to examine any figures with which the hon. Lady would care to furnish me.

PENSION SCHEMES (YORKSHIRE).

Mr. T. Williams: asked the Secretary for Mines how many schemes are in operation in collieries in Yorkshire where mine owners and mine workers provide old age pensioners with a supplementary allowance; and the average weekly deduction from miners' wages to provide the funds?

Mr. Lloyd: This information is not at present available but I am making inquiries and will communicate with the hon. Member as soon as possible.

Mr. Williams: Will the hon. Gentleman at the same time supply his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer with this information?

SWAZILAND (DEATH SENTENCE, APPEAL).

Mr. Ammon: asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether, seeing that a period of two years will soon have elapsed during which the Swaziland chief Fakisandhla has been under sentence of death, awaiting either acquittal or execution, he is now able to say what steps will be taken to expedite the appeal which His Majesty's Privy Council has agreed should take place?

The Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (Mr. Eden): The appellant's case has not yet been lodged with the Privy Council, but I understand that every effort is being made to have this done with the least possible delay. I may add


that as it appeared that the delay was to some extent due to the difficulties of the appellant in providing funds for the prosecution of the appeal, I have undertaken on behalf of the Swaziland Administration to guarantee payment of part of the costs if the appellant's case is ready for hearing during the present law term.

SOUTHERN RHODESIA (NATIVE PASS LAWS).

Mr. Paling: asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he is aware that, prior to the introduction of the Natives Registration Act of Southern Rhodesia, the House was informed that this Act had been passed with the object of reducing convictions in the Pass Laws and because the Southern Rhodesian Government was seriously perturbed at the growing number of alleged offences in Southern Rhodesia; is he aware also that the view was widely expressed that, so far from obtaining a substantial reduction in the number of convictions for Pass Law offences, this Act would almost certainly increase the convictions; and whether, seeing that the latest figures do not show the anticipated decrease, he will urge upon the Government of Southern Rhodesia some modifications of the Natives Registration Act?

Mr. Eden: The last part of the Question appears to be due to a misapprehension, since the number of convictions in 1938, which I gave in my reply to the hon. Member on 20th February, indicates a decrease as compared with the corresponding figures for the two previous years. The number of convictions for contraventions of the Southern Rhodesian Pass Laws, including offences under the Natives Registration legislation, fell from 16,568 in 1936 to 13,273 in 1938, which was the first full year in which the Natives Registration Act of 1936 was in force.

Mr. Paling: Is the right hon. Gentleman sure that the figures for 1938 show no increase over the previous year?

Mr. Eden: The fact is that there are two laws and it is a very complicated business. Perhaps if I had a word with the hon. Gentleman afterwards, I could explain the matter to him.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

EXPORT TRADE EXPANSION.

Mr. Liddall: asked the President of the Board of Trade (1) whether he will give the names of those members of the Export Council who have had personal experience of processing raw materials into finished goods for export, personal experience of local overseas conditions, and personal knowledge of selling methods required for competitive overseas markets;
(2) whether those members of the Export Council who have had no personal experience of selling in competitive overseas markets will, as economic experts co-ordinated with the Economic Council, advise British exporters how to increase export trade while the foreign markets are only sellers' markets and non-competitive or afterwards when they become buyers' markets and competitive?

The President of the Board of Trade (Sir Andrew Duncan): The members of the Export Council were chosen, not because of their knowledge of particular trades, but because they were persons of wide knowledge and experience in the various aspects of commercial and industrial life. They are, in my judgment, well qualified to deal with the considerations that arise in relation to export trade, whether the markets are sellers' markets or buyers' markets.

Mr. Liddall: Is not the Minister aware that the majority of these theoretical gentlemen are quite unfit for these jobs?

Mr. Shinwell: asked the President of the Board of Trade when he expects to be in a position to make a full statement to hon. Members on his policy for stimulating exports?

Sir A. Duncan: Since their appointment, the Export Council have been giving their urgent consideration to the need for making a public statement of their plans and I expect to present a White Paper very shortly.

Mr. Shinwell: Apart from any views held by the Export Council, has the right hon. Gentleman no views of his own, and is he aware that there is considerable anxiety about this and will he not make a personal statement very soon?

Sir A. Duncan: I would remind the hon. Member that I am chairman of the Export Council.

Mr. Shinwell: Then would the right hon. Gentleman, as chairman of the Export Council, impart his views to the House?

Sir A. Duncan: I have just stated that a White Paper will be presented very shortly.

Mr. Shinwell: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the reluctance of many traders to under take the export of goods owing to the risks involved; that many prefer to engage in internal trade free from risk; and whether he has any proposals for dealing with this situation?

Sir A. Duncan: The matters to which the hon. Member refers are prominently in the minds of the members of the Export Council and I hope that with their assistance methods will be found for dealing with the situation in individual trades. The methods will, of course, vary from trade to trade.

Rear-Admiral Beamish: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether members of the Export Council will visit various overseas countries to develop ex port trade by personal contact, or depute such duties to individuals or groups of British firms in relevant trades while directing export trade expansion from here in an advisory capacity rather than by contacts in the overseas markets?

Sir A. Duncan: The immediate task of the Export Council is to assist in the organisation of industry with a view to maintaining and increasing the export trade as a vital part of our war effort. It must clearly be the task of individual industries and groups to undertake the personal contacts to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers.

Sir F. Sanderson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that thousands of consignments of material for export are being held up because of the shortage of freights? Can he do anything to assist in the matter?

Sir A. Duncan: It is our duty to give all the assistance we can, and if the hon. Member would give me particulars I should be happy to look into them.

Sir F. Sanderson: I have done so and also to the shipping controllers, without result.

AMERICAN TOBACCO.

Mr. Mander: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether purchases of American tobacco have been resumed on a substantial scale; whether the resumption of purchases has been agreed upon by His Majesty's Government; and whether he will state the reasons for which dollar resources are used for such purchases?

Sir A. Duncan: The answer to the first part of the Question is in the negative and the second part, therefore, does not arise.

JAPANESE TEXTILES (IMPORTS).

Miss Wilkinson: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can inform the House about the arrangement, recently made with the Japanese Government, providing for the import of 350,000 dozen pairs of stockings and a large quantity of other textiles from Japan?

Sir A. Duncan: There has for some years past been an agreement between the British and Japanese hosiery manufacturers for the limitation of exports of Japanese hosiery to the United Kingdom. This agreement was renewed last month and, with the agreement of the British hosiery industry, the import licensing restrictions have since been relaxed so as to allow a limited import of cheap Japanese hosiery of a kind not made here in quantities sufficient to meet the demand.

Miss Wilkinson: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in view of the need for conserving foreign currency and the position in regard to food supplies, he thinks it necessary to arrange for these imports into this country during a time of war?

Sir A. Duncan: There is, likewise, of course, the need for export trade and it has been made clear to the Japanese Government that the continuance of this concession must depend upon their attitude towards the admission of British wool hosiery into Japan.

Mr. Thorne: Surely the right hon. Gentleman is aware that the more trade


we do with Japan, the more they will be able to hammer away at China?

Mr. Wilmot: Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that the purpose of stimulating exports is to purchase war materials abroad and not stockings?

Miss Wilkinson: Does the Minister agree with that? Could we have a Ministerial pronouncement on that subject?

Sir A. Duncan: In general, I do agree.

ANIMAL FEEDING-STUFFS (EXPORTS).

Mr. R. C. Morrison: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether any animal feeding-stuffs have been ex-ported since the commencement of the war?

Sir A. Duncan: During the five months ended January, 1940, exports of feeding-stuffs for animals, of United Kingdom production, were valued at £135,000, while re-exports amounted to £39,000. By far the greater proportion of these exports; were to Empire countries.

EXCHANGE RATES.

Mr. Emery: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many of his officials possess personal up-to-date experience, apart from theoretical know ledge, of applying differential rates of exchange that have been operated by other countries in markets outside the now neutral sterling area; will he say in which markets; and, in cases where his staff have not the essential personal non-theoretical knowledge, will he secure the necessary skilled assistance from outside sources?

Sir A. Duncan:: I am satisfied that sufficient technical experience would be available to His Majesty's Government for the operation of any arrangement which it might be decided to adopt.

Trading with the Enemy Act (Shareholding).

Mr. Craven-Ellis: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the considerable inconvenience caused to British nationals throughout the Empire, as well as in Great Britain, by their identification with enemy nationals on the directorates and in the shareholding of limited liability companies; and how far his regulations safeguard the

interests of such British directors and shareholders in the implementation of the strict terms of the Enemy Property Act?

Sir A. Duncan: The position of the Board of Trade in this matter is governed by the provisions of Section 7 of the Trading with the Enemy Act. Shares held by or on behalf of enemies in companies registered in the United Kingdom are normally vested in the Custodian of Enemy Property if such shareholding constitutes a controlling interest. The beneficial enemy ownership of the shares is thus in abeyance and the enemy directors are prevented from functioning. The interests of British directors and shareholders are thus fully safeguarded and it is open to the British shareholders, if they so desire, to remove the enemy directors from office. The question of action in other parts of the Empire is a matter for their respective Governments.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: If I bring to the right hon. Gentleman's notice a case in which British directors and shareholders have not had their interests protected, will he look into it?

Sir A. Duncan: I shall be very happy to do so.

AMSTERDAM BANK (GERMAN CONTROL).

Mr. Parker: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the Amsterdam banking firm, Rhodins Kolnig and Company, is controlled by German interests and is managed and staffed by Germans; and whether, in view of this fact, he will take steps to place the firm's name on the statutory list?

Sir A. Duncan: It is not in the national interest to publish information of this kind relating to the exercise of the powers conferred on the Board of Trade by Subsection (2) of Section 2 of the Trading with the Enemy Act.

Mr. Parker: Is it not in the national interest that British subjects should be given all the information possible so that they will know whether they are trading through firms under German control?

Sir A. Duncan: I cannot add to my answer.

WOOLLEN CLOTH AND BOOTS.

Mr. Maxton: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can give


any figures that will indicate whether the production of woollen cloth and of boots has increased, decreased, or remained stationary since the outbreak of war?

Sir A. Duncan: I regret I have no precise information relating to the output of woollen cloth and boots since the outbreak of war.

Mr. Maxton: Has the Minister in his Department any estimates of the exportable surplus?

Sir A. Duncan: The Department is busily engaged in trying to make an estimate of that kind, but I have no precise information.

Mr. Maxton: Of course, I am aware that it has not been the practice of his Department to know these things, but would it not be desirable, in view of the present circumstances, to try and know what this country is capable of producing in an essential industry?

Sir A. Duncan: It is very desirable, and the Department is proceeding to get that knowledge.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF SHIPPING.

GREAT BRITAIN AND UNITED STATES (DISCUSSIONS).

Mr. Leslie Boyce: asked the Minister of Shipping whether he will give an assurance that before His Majesty's Government agree to any plan whereby American ships should take over the services in certain areas now performed by British ships in order to release those ships for service in areas barred to American vessels, a condition of any such arrangement shall be that any services so taken over by American vessels will be restored intact to British shipping at the conclusion of hostilities?

The Minister of Shipping (Sir John Gilmour): This matter is one for discussion between the British and United States lines concerned, but I can assure my hon. Friend that I am fully aware of the importance of safeguarding the position of British shipping after the war and I will not overlook the considerations set out in his Question.

Mr. Boyce: Is the Minister in a position to make a statement as to whether discussions are now proceeding?

Sir J. Gilmour: Yes, Sir. I understand that some such discussions are proceeding.

Mr. Shinwell: The right hon. Gentleman says he "understands" that some such discussions are proceeding. Has he actual knowledge of these discussions?

Sir J. Gilmour: Yes, Sir. I have.

MERCHANT SEAMEN (FREE RAILWAY VOUCHERS).

Mr. Touche: asked the Minister of Shipping whether, in view of the national services rendered by seamen of the Mercantile Marine, he will be prepared to grant two free railway vouchers a year to merchant seamen when on leave?

Sir J. Gilmour: Representations on this subject have recently been received from the National Maritime Board and are now under consideration.

LIFE-SAVING APPARATUS.

Miss Rathbone: asked the Minister of Shipping what proportion of British mercantile vessels, including fishing craft, working in areas under risk from enemy attack or mines are fitted with rafts, kapoc waistcoats and steel helmets; whether this is done at the expense of the Government or of the employers; and whether, in view of the recent heavy casualties, these forms of provision will be made compulsory?

Sir J. Gilmour: I recognise that lifeboats alone are not sufficient under present conditions and I have been in communication with shipowners with a view to securing the provision of rafts of a suitable type and buoyant waistcoats or belts as rapidly as possible. Shipowners responded immediately and inquiries show that with few exceptions rafts are now provided, and that good progress has been made in the manufacture and supply of waistcoats and belts. I have decided to make compulsory the provision of rafts on all ships operating in dangerous waters. I have advised the shipowners' organisations that steel helmets also should be provided for ships' personnel, and the Admiralty have taken power, in the Protection of Exposed Personnel (Merchant Shipping) Order, 1940, to require protective equipment to be provided for personnel exposed to machine-gun attack by enemy aircraft.

Miss Rathbone: Are we to understand that from now on the provision of rafts is compulsory; also, I am not quite sure whether the provision of the other items is compulsory?

Sir J. Gilmour: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Thorne: Is the Minister aware that if a man or woman wears a life-saving jacket it is impossible to sink.

Oral Answers to Questions — ECONOMIC WARFARE.

SPAIN (COPPER-ORE EXPORTS).

Mr. Mander: asked the Minister of Economic Warfare what steps are being taken to prevent large quantities of copper ore from the British-owned Rio Tinto mines in Spain, being delivered to Germany?

Mr. Wilmot: asked the Minister of Economic Warfare whether he is aware that Germany has been receiving from a British-controlled company operating in Spain 35,000 tons of copper ore per month; and what steps he is taking to put an end to this?

The Minister of Economic Warfare (Mr. Cross): Goods cannot be shipped from Spain to Germany without passing through the area of the British or French contraband control. According to my information, no copper ore shipped from Spain since the outbreak of the war has reached Germany.

Mr. Mander: Is the Minister in a position to say that there is no foundation for the widely circulated statement that the Spanish Government is forcing the Rio Tinto mines to export about 35,000 tons a month of copper-ore, which is finding its. way to Germany?

Mr. Cross: I believe there is no foundation whatever for that story. Indeed, I understand from the Rio Tinto Company that at the present time no copper-ore whatever is being exported from Spain, where it is all needed.

Mr. Wilmot: Will the Minister convey that answer to the Minister of Information with the request that it be circulated in America, where this rumour has been given wide currency?

Mr. Cross: I am sure that the hon. Member's Supplementary Question has already called the attention of the Minister to it.

CONTRABAND CONTROL.

Mr. G. Strauss: asked the Minister of Economic Warfare what are the arrangements under which Italian ships are exempted from contraband control at Gibraltar?

Mr. Cross: Italian ships are not exempted from contraband control at Gibraltar. They can, however, in common with other neutral ships, avail themselves of facilities enabling them on certain terms to proceed after a brief examination. These terms are that their cargo is to be held at their port of destination pending a decision by the Contraband Committee. Any goods then ordered to be seized are re-shipped to a suitable allied port at the expense of the shipping company.

Mr. Strauss: Is the Minister quite sure that there is no evasion by ships going to small ports, or anything of that sort?

Mr. Cross: I cannot say that there is never any evasion because, obviously, the sea is a large place and a number of vessels may escape contraband control. I have, however, no information which indicates that there is evasion of any importance.

Miss Wilkinson: Is it not indicated by the large increase of products obtained by Russia from the United States as compared with last year?

Mr. Cross: This question concerns Italy.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: asked the Minister of Economic Warfare whether he is aware that there is widespread uneasiness about the extent of the circumvention of the blockade through the United States, Russia, Norway, Italy, Holland, and Belgium; and that in view of the vital importance of the full enforcement of the blockade, he will make a statement to the House on this matter?

Mr. Cary: asked the Minister of Economic Warfare whether, in view of the existence of a number of loopholes in the blockade, he will make an early statement reviewing the position and progress of economic warfare?

Mr. Cross: I have not at present anything that I can usefully add to my statement to the House on 17th January. I can, however, assure my hon. Friends that the possibilities of evasion of our


contraband control are constantly under review, but such information as I have does not lead me to suspect that there is serious leakage so far as the European countries referred to are concerned. If my hon. Friends have any evidence in a contrary sense, I shall be glad to receive and consider it. There is more evidence of efforts to ship contraband via Vladivostock and the possibilities of checking such shipments is being considered, but the extent to which this route can be used for bulky commodities is obviously limited. I will, of course, be prepared, should the occasion arise, to make a further statement on the subject.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: Will my hon. Friend see any information that I and other Members have?

Mr. Cross: indicated assent.

RUSSIA (WAR MATERIAL IMPORTS).

Rear-Admiral Beamish: asked the Minister of Economic Warfare what knowledge he has of imports of war material consigned to Russia; by what routes such imports proceed; from what countries and in whose ships it is carried; and why the British contraband control lets it through, in view of its possible ultimate destination?

Mr. Cross: Russian imports of war material, except from Germany, appear to have been considerably reduced in recent months. Imports of certain raw materials including rubber, copper and molybdenum during the period September to January were, however, larger than during the same period in 1937–38. These imports have entered the Soviet Union at Vladivostock, and come from the United States of America, either direct or through Mexico, from the Philippines and from the Netherlands East Indies. The ships employed appear mainly to be Soviet, Dutch, Japanese and Norwegian. These ships do not pass through the British contraband control.

Rear-Admiral Beamish: Is the Minister aware that there is an apparent looseness which inflicts a great injury on the interests of this country and also makes very grave difficulties for the Navy?

Mr. Cross: My hon. Friend must appreciate that there is no contraband control in the Pacific.

Mr. Mander: asked the Minister of Economic Warfare whether he has any information about large shipments of tin from the United States to Vladivostock during the last few months; and whether, in view of the fact that no such shipments were made before the war, he is in a position to assure the House that the metal is not re-exported to Germany?

Mr. Price: asked the Minister of Economic Warfare whether he has any information about the increase of shipments of oil, tin and rubber by the United States to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; and whether he is satisfied that part of these raw materials will not be re-sold to Germany?

Mr. Cross: I am aware that shipments of tin and rubber from the United States of America to the Soviet Union have increased during the last few months; shipments of petroleum appear, however, to have decreased. I have no information to show whether part of these raw materials is being re-sold to Germany.

Mr. Mander: Are not conversations being conducted with the United States Government with a view to obtaining the assurance which we ought to have that this is not being re-exported to Germany?

Mr. Cross: It will be remembered that the United States is a neutral country. They are, I believe, well aware of all the circumstances, and I do not feel it would be perhaps our best course to make any such direct approach as the hon. Member suggests.

Mr. Mander: Is it not the case that we are conducting negotiations with a large number of neutral countries at the present time for the very purpose of preventing this kind of thing? Why then should the United States be excluded?

Mr. Cross: For the simple reason that the countries with whom we are conducting these negotiations are subject to our contraband control and there is no such sanction where the United States are concerned.

Mr. Price: Can the Minister say whether these goods go via Vladivostock or via Murmansk and the White Sea?

Mr. Cross: I have no information of materials coming in at Murmansk and the White Sea, but I can say that material is


going in at Vladivostock and via the Kobe-Darien route.

Mr. Leach: Does it not indicate that America prefers Mammon to democracy?

UNITED STATES EXPORTS (NEUTRAL COUNTRIES).

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: asked the Minister of Economic Warfare whether he is aware that in the last four months of 1939, as compared with the corresponding period in 1938, American exports to the 13 countries, Italy, Russia, four Balkan and three Scandinavian countries, Belgium, Holland, Hungary and Switzerland rose in value from £35,000,000 to £52,000,000, while in the same periods American values to Britain and France only increased from £60.000,000 to £67,000,000; and what steps he proposes to take?

Mr. Cross: The figures given by my hon. and gallant Friend as regards American exports to the United Kingdom and France are approximately accurate; I have not been able to check the figures as regards the 13 neutral countries referred to. But even if the figures are as stated, it does not follow that any action on the part of His Majesty's Government is necessarily required. I have no reason to suspect any serious leakage, as far as European countries are concerned. It must be remembered that a number of factors affect these figures including increases in prices and the desire of neutral countries to strengthen their stocks of foodstuffs and raw materials. Nor have we any reason to object if a neutral country should obtain its requirements from the United States rather than from Germany. I would add that the American exports to the 13 neutral countries mentioned, with the exception of exports to Russia via Vladivostock, pass through our controls and are most carefully watched.

Sir A. Knox: Is the hon. Member quite sure that the neutral countries are not being treated too leniently, and is he aware that his Ministry is a Ministry of Economic Warfare and not of economic appeasement?

Mr. Cross: I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend most definitely that we do use our bargaining and other powers to the full.

WAR TRADE AGREEMENTS.

Miss Ward: asked the Minister of Economic Warfare whether His Majesty's Government have consented, in any of the agreements concluded or under negotiation with neutral Governments, to the continuation of re-export to Germany by the neutral countries concerned?

Mr. Cross: With the permission of the House, Mr. Speaker, I will make a short statement on this subject at the end of Questions: perhaps the hon. Lady will be good enough to await this statement.

Later—

Mr. Cross: As I explained in my reply to the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Parker) on 20th February, it would not be in the public interest to disclose the details of the various war trade agreements which we have concluded. But it may be useful if I take this opportunity to summarise very broadly the main features which, with some difference of detail, are embodied in these agreements.
These war trade agreements cover the whole trade of the countries concerned. In the first place, of course, we had to deal with their overseas imports. These imports fall within our contraband control and we are entitled to seize any contraband goods in respect of which we have some evidence or at least suspicion of enemy destination. But we cannot detain imports consigned to neutral countries except to the extent necessary to assure ourselves that they are genuinely required for the domestic consumption of those countries and are not going to Germany. Our first objective, therefore, has been to obtain appropriate guarantees from the Governments concerned that their overseas imports and especially imports of foodstuffs and raw materials will be used exclusively for their domestic requirements, including in some cases reasonable provision for stocks, and that they will not be re-exported to Germany. The neutral countries concerned have the machinery for preventing such re-exports through prohibitions of export or licensing systems, and one of the essential points of our agreements is to secure that these measures should be operated in a manner satisfactory to us. There has been no substantial difficulty in securing this.
I come next to the goods which these countries produce themselves. As regards


such produce, the countries concerned usually stipulate that goods of purely domestic origin may be exported to both belligerents on the peace-time level, and, as these are goods which have not passed through our patrols, we have not the same control as we have of their overseas imports. Moreover, it must be remembered that the maintenance of such exports is vital to the economic life of the neutral countries concerned; and in many cases we ourselves benefit from such exports to at least as great, if not a greater degree than Germany. Even in this class of goods, however, we aim at reducing the exports to Germany as far as practicable.
There remains a group of intermediate cases where the neutral country has a manufacturing industry dependent on imports of raw materials. These are the most difficult cases to deal with; and our aim in the case of important commodities has been by agreement either to prevent entirely or to restrict to trifling quantities the exports to Germany of such manufactures. But the degree of restriction naturally depends on the circumstances and particularly on the importance of the commodity concerned.
In general, the war trade agreements aim at securing guarantees against the re-export of contraband goods to Germany, with the machinery for their enforcement, and thus facilitating the operation of our contraband control and, at the same time, enabling the neutral countries concerned to maintain their own domestic economy. But I should make it clear that there is nothing in these war trade agreements which prevents us from exercising our full belligerent rights in respect of any consignments in regard to which we have evidence of enemy destination.

SWEDISH IRON-ORE EXPORTS.

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Minister of Economic Warfare whether he can state the amount of iron-ore exported from Sweden to Germany since the outbreak of war?

Mr. Cross: In the absence of published statistics I regret that I am not in a position to give authoritative information on the amount of iron-ore exported from Sweden to Germany during the war.

Mr. Shinwell: Is there not an agreement in force whereby the Swedish Government stipulate that with the export of iron-ore to this country they shall be entitled to export iron-ore to Germany? Why is it not possible for the British Government to state the figures of exports?

Mr. Cross: There is no such agreement.

Mr. Shinwell: Does the hon. Gentleman say that no such stipulation has been made by the Swedish Government?

Mr. Cross: None whatever as I understand the hon. Member.

Mr. Davidson: Has the Minister any information about this question, and, if so, does it lead him to believe that the amount of iron-ore exported from Sweden to Germany has increased?

Mr. Cross: I have information, of course, but it is that information which I indicated I thought I had better not give to the House. The only information I could give is that which could be derived from public records, and there are no such records.

Mr. Shinwell: Is any attempt being made to blockade Swedish iron-ore exports to Germany, for if Germany is able to obtain it half the battle is won for her?

Mr. Cross: No one realises better than I do the importance of Swedish iron-ore to Germany, and if the hon. Member can indicate any means whereby we can blockade Swedish iron-ore going across the Baltic I shall be obliged.

Mr. Cocks: Will the Government consider purchasing the Swedish iron-ore?

Mr. Cross: First we have to persuade the Swedish Government to sell it.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

CATERING.

Sir Joseph Leech: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will issue to all messing officers attached to the home Forces a general order that food must be served to the men either in a hot or a cold condition, and not tepid; and will he repeat the order every month


during the duration of the war so as to avoid tepid food being rejected by the men and so wasted?

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Oliver Stanley): I do not think such an order is required.

REQUISITIONED VEHICLES.

Sir A. Knox: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he has had under consideration the position of owners of single lorries whose vehicles were requisitioned in the first month of the war and when, though the then market price was paid, the owner could not replace his vehicle and so continue to earn his livelihood without an expenditure much greater and in many cases altogether beyond his means; and whether he will consider the granting of compensation in such cases?

Mr. Stanley: The sum payable in respect of an impressed vehicle is limited by Statute to the amount which represents its fair market value. In these circumstances, the War Office has no power to pay additional compensation on the lines suggested.

Sir A. Knox: Is it not possible to get powers to give these men compensation, as several have lost all their means of livelihood?

Mr. Stanley: The powers are laid down by Statute, but were only exercised occasionally in the first months of war and instructions have been given that no further impressments are to be made in cases such as my hon. and gallant Friend refers to.

Sir A. Knox: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the wrong still remains and that these unfortunate men have lost their livelihood?

DEPENDANTS' ALLOWANCES.

Mr. Dobbie: asked the Secretary of State for War whether children of members of His Majesty's Forces who are over the age of 14 years and in full-time attendance at school are eligible for allowances on the same scale and under similar conditions to children under the age of 14 years?

Mr. Stanley: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Dobbie: asked the Secretary of State for War whether there is any set principle in operation which recognises the

payment of an allowance to a foster-mother to a family where the eldest of the family is in the Army and has been the breadwinner and is making an allotment to the foster-mother to help maintain the younger children; and, if so, is it on the basis of a soldier's wife's allowance and the children's allowance?

Mr. Stanley: The foster-mother of a man who has joined the Army in connection with the present war is eligible for an award of dependants' allowance under the conditions prescribed in the relevant regulations, provided she has acted in the place of a parent to the soldier and has wholly or mainly supported him during his minority for not less than five years. Details as to the rates and conditions of allowances are contained in the White Paper (Cmd. 6138) recently issued. The rates and conditions are not the same as those applicable to soldiers' wives and children. In cases of hardship due to the withdrawal of the soldier's contribution to the household which are not covered by the ordinary regulations, application can be made to the War Service Grants Advisory Committee for consideration of a special allowance.

Mr. Dobbie: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what are the relevant regulations referred to?

Mr. Stanley: They are those governing the issue of dependant's allowance.

Mr. R. J. Taylor: asked the Secretary of State for War (1) how many married women separated from their husbands now in the Armed Forces, have been refused the usual Army allowances, notwithstanding the fact that such women have obtained separation orders for their maintenance;
(2) how many married women whose husbands have deserted them and joined the Armed Forces before a court order for their maintenance could be obtained, have been refused the Army allowances?

Mr. Dobbie: asked the Secretary of State for War whether a soldier's wife who has a magistrate's order for maintenance allowance against her husband is paid by the Government the full amount of such order, or, if not, what amount is paid in such cases?

Mr. Stanley: I regret that the information asked for by the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. R. J. Taylor) is not available. I would, however, explain that the ordinary Army family allowance is granted to assist soldiers, who fulfil the prescribed conditions, in the maintenance of their homes, and it is not issuable in cases where, owing to domestic disagreement, these homes have been broken up. In such circumstances, the men concerned can be placed under compulsory stoppages of pay in respect of the maintenance of their wives, under the conditions prescribed in Section 145 (2) of the Army Act; and where, in the case of men who have joined the colours for service in connection with the war, the amount which can be so stopped is insufficient to prevent serious hardship arising to the wives through the calling up of their husbands, these amounts can be supplemented by a grant of special assistance. The administrative arrangements in connection with these cases are at present under review.

Viscountess Astor: Will my right hon. Friend carry out his promise and look into this matter? Does he know that there is a growing feeling throughout the country, and in this House, that some decision ought to be given in this matter? Perhaps the Prime Minister will look into it, as he does into most other matters?

Mr. Stanley: It may be possible for us to spare the Prime Minister trouble. As I have told the Noble Lady on several occasions, particularly when she came on a deputation to me, I am inquiring into the matter. I have already informed the House about the discussion on the question of allowances.

Viscountess Astor: It may be a question for discussion, but my right hon. Friend said that he would look into it and give us a reply. We do not want to discuss it. We want a decision.

Lieut.-Commander Agnew: Is it the position now that a man may turn his wife out of his house and then draw an allowance for another woman?

Mr. Stanley: No, Sir.

Lieut.-Commander Agnew: It is the position.

BARRACKS AND CAMPS (DRYING FACILITIES).

Mr. Liddall: asked the Secretary of State for War whether arrangements are made in all home establishments occupied by the Army, Royal Air Force, and Women's Auxiliary Forces for responsible officers to prevent the use of damp bedding; and whether adequate facilities are available in all such establishments for drying bedding and wet clothes, in order to reduce avoidable liability to sick ness?

Mr. Stanley: In all permanent barracks and camps properly equipped drying rooms are provided, where bedding can be aired and clothes dried. In the case of other accommodation, commanding officers are responsible for making suitable arrangements. Special officers are not appointed for this purpose. It is the duty of every officer to care for the health and comfort of the men or women under his or her command.

Dr. Edith Summerskill: Why are not the same facilities provided for the men troops, because there is just as great a danger from damp bedding?

Mr. Stanley: I said that in all permanent barracks and camps, whether used by men or women, these facilities are provided.

PAY DEDUCTIONS.

Mr. Parker: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that weekly deductions are being made from the pay of men in the 43rd Wessex Divisional Signals in many cases against their wishes; and whether this scheme of compulsory saving has the approval of the War Office?

Mr. Stanley: I am informed that no such scheme exists in this unit and that no deductions from pay for such a purpose have been made.

Mr. Parker: If I provide the right hon. Gentleman with information will he look into it?

Mr. Stanley: I will, but I have seen a categorical denial that there is any such scheme.

RATES OF PAY.

Mr. McGovern: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he can state the allowance per day paid to privates,


lance-corporals, corporals and Serjeants in the British Army; and whether he has any knowledge of the corresponding allowances paid to each similar rank in the New Zealand, Australian and Canadian armies, respectively?

Mr. Stanley: The rates of pay in the British Army vary according to length of service, proficiency and trade qualification as well as rank. I will circulate in the Official Report the range of rates for the ranks mentioned in the Question. In addition, the soldier is provided with accommodation and rations and other benefits in cash or kind, such as clothing, medical attendance, allowances for families and dependants and non-effective benefits. I regret that I have no authoritative comparable information regarding the emoluments of Dominion troops.

Mr. McGovern: I have communicated with these Dominions regarding the allowances paid in the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian Armies, and I will place the information in the Library when I get it.

Mr. Stanley: I have no comparable information because, in addition to the actual rates of pay, the soldiers here have other allowances.

Following are the rates:

The rates of pay in the British Army range from 2s. to 6s. 3d. a day in the case of a private, 3s. 3d. to 6s. 6d. a day in the case of a lance-corporal, 4s. to 7s. 3d. a day in the case of a corporal, and 6s. to 8s. 9d. a day in the case of a serjeant.

CAMP REFUSE.

Mr. T. Smith: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the large amount of materials and valuable refuse still being wasted in Army camps in this country, and what steps he is taking to deal with it?

Mr. Stanley: I am not aware that a large amount of materials and valuable refuse is being wasted in Army camps or barracks. Instructions regarding the prevention of waste have been issued, and there is daily evidence of active and continuous efforts to conserve and economise.

HOME DEFENCE VOLUNTEERS (OVERSEAS SERVICE).

Miss Rathbone: asked the Secretary of State for War whether men over the

age for registration, who have voluntarily joined up before or after the outbreak of war for home defence only, are compelled to accompany their units if they go overseas; and, if not, what steps they should take if they desire to secure transfer to other units?

Mr. Stanley: If a man who has not enlisted, or subsequently accepted a liability, for general service, is ordered overseas, he should report the facts to his commanding officer. He will not then be sent overseas, and will, if necessary, be transferred to another unit at home.

Miss Rathbone: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many men are unconscious that they can object and have failed to do so; and will he make it generally known to commanding officers that men need not accompany their units overseas if they joined for home defence only? Will he give men an opportunity of saying whether they consent or do not consent?

Mr. Stanley: I will certainly inquire to see whether that is fully understood.

MEDICAL EXAMINATION.

Mr. R. C. Morrison: asked the Secretary of State for War how many men have been passed A1 for service and discharged or reduced to a lower category on medical grounds within three months of being called up; and whether he is satisfied that the medical examination is being carried out efficiently?

Mr. Stanley: I regret that the information asked for in the first part of the Question is not available. I know of no reason to question the efficiency of the medical examinations which are being carried out.

Mr. Morrison: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Members of Parliament have received particulars of a considerable number of cases of men who have been accepted for service and in a few weeks have been turned down on medical grounds, proving that the examinations must have been rather superficial?

Mr. Stanley: There certainly are some cases, although, as I have no doubt the hon. Member will agree, they are all immediately investigated and the matter is put right. I cannot say that the number


of cases is such as to call into question the efficiency, in general, of the examinations.

Mr. McGovern: Will Tommy Farr get a pension?

WOMEN'S AUXILIARY SERVICE.

Dr. Summerskill: asked the Secretary of State for War what proportion of officers in the Women's Auxiliary Services are promoted from the ranks?

Mr. Stanley: Nearly 90 per cent. of the present officers of the Auxiliary Territorial Service were appointed while the Service was being formed. The remainder, with the exception of a few who served as officers in the last war, were appointed after service in the ranks, and this will continue to be the practice.

HEALTH AND MEDICAL SERVICES.

Sir Annesley Somerville: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is satisfied that due provision is made for the health and medical needs of the young men in training for commissions in the Army?

Mr. Stanley: The same provision is made for the health of men in officer cadet training units as for all ranks. It is the constant endeavour to bring the medical services to the highest pitch of efficiency.

Sir Francis Fremantle: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that 127 small military hospitals and reception stations are staffed by voluntary aid detachments with no trained nurses; that these arrangements, intended only for brief detention, are frequently obliged to accommodate cases of pneumonia, cerebro-spinal fever and other serious diseases; and whether he will appoint at least one trained nurse to each such hospital or station?

Mr. Stanley: Certificated nurses are not normally employed in small military hospitals and reception stations, which are not intended for the treatment of serious cases. Such nurses are, however, called in when their services are needed. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would send me particulars of any case of cerebro-spinal fever being treated at one of these establishments.

Sir F. Fremantle: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, whereas this was the normal practice as understood, entirely different conditions have prevailed since the outbreak of the war and that the V.A.Ds. are absolutely untrained to look after cases that have had to be accommodated in these hospitals—127 of them?

Dr. Summerskill: In view of the alarmingly high proportion of deaths from sickness in the first casualties, will the Minister give this matter his personal attention?

Mr. Stanley: I am giving it my personal attention and I hope to make a statement about it on the Estimates; but I could not agree that there was an alarming high death rate in the first casualty list. As I explained, having regard to accidents caused by the blackout, the death rate from disease was not unduly high.

Dr. Summerskill: Surely the Parliamentary Secretary's Answer to a previous Question of mine on this subject was an admission that about 90 per cent. of the deaths in the first casualty list were due to sickness?

Mr. Sloan: asked the Secretary of State for War (1) to state the number of soldiers certified as sick and ailing who are billeted in private houses in Scotland because of the absence of hospital accommodation; and what steps he proposes to take to ensure the provision of adequate hospital accommodation for soldiers in Scotland;
(2) whether the numbers of sick soldiers billeted in private houses in Scotland is increasing; and how many deaths have been due to the absence of hospital accommodation;
(3) to furnish a list of the certified diseases from which soldiers billeted in private houses in Scotland are suffering?

Mr. Stanley: I have called for a report, and will communicate with the hon. Member in due course.

SOCIAL WELFARE (CIVIL LIABILITIES).

Mr. J. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for War whether any steps are being taken to provide a competent authority in each military training camp in order to assist the men called to the Colours in such private questions as life assurance, house purchase, hire purchase, etc.?

Mr. Stanley: It is the duty of every officer to look after the welfare of his men, but in many units and camps one officer is deputed specially to deal with inquiries regarding such matters as life assurance, house purchase and hire purchase. In addition, social welfare officers have been appointed throughout the country and an important part of their duties is to advise on personal matters of this nature. In many cases, they have the assistance of local solicitors and others who are able to give expert advice on special matters. Cases which cannot be dealt with locally may be referred to command social welfare officers, who in turn are assisted by specialist advisers.

COMMISSIONS FROM RANKS.

Mr. J. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for War the number of non-commissioned officers promoted to the rank of commissioned officers since September, 1939; what number have so been promoted from the Regular Army; and the total from the Territorial units during this period?

Mr. Stanley: I regret that the information asked for is not available.

Mr. Henderson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the discrimination exercised in regard to these promotions is arousing deep resentment among non-commissioned officers of the Regular Army and that, despite the boast of its democratisation, the Army is as full of the old school tie as ever?

Mr. Stanley: I am not aware that this is causing resentment, and the hon. Gentleman's statement is quite untrue. [Hon. Members: "Oh!"] I apologise—is wholly inaccurate. The pledge given by my predecessor is being fully carried out.

Mr. Davidson: What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by "fully"?

Mr. Stanley: Wholly.

MINISTRY OF SUPPLY (EMERGENCY COMMISSIONS).

Mr. Ede: asked the Secretary of State for War how many commissions have been granted to civilians since the outbreak of war on the recommendation, or at the request, of the Ministry of Supply; and what will be the military

status of such persons if, for any reason, their services are no longer required by, or in connection with, the Ministry of Supply?

Mr. Stanley: The number of emergency commissions which have been granted at the request of the Ministry of Supply is 25. If no longer required by the Ministry, these officers would be available for employment as such elsewhere, or, if they were not so required, their commissions could be terminated.

Mr. Ede: What happens in the case of a man granted a captain's commission when he has no military experience? When his services are no longer required will he go straight over to the command of a battery or a company?

Mr. Stanley: His services will be available for employment elsewhere if required; if not, they will be dispensed with.

TERRITORIAL ARMY NURSING SERVICE.

Sir F. Fremantle: asked the Secretary of State for War whether the nurses of the general hospitals of the Territorial Army, abolished last summer, were called up at the beginning of the war, and are waiting and available for any service required?

Mr. Stanley: The Territorial Army Nursing Service personnel attached to the Territorial Army general hospitals, which were abolished in September, 1938, were not called up at the beginning of the war. Their services were not then required and they had been individually notified that it was unlikely they would be needed for some months. A certain number volunteered for service during the first few weeks, and as many as possible of these were absorbed in the units then being formed. Others are being called up as required. The remainder are waiting and available. Meanwhile, they continue in their civil posts.

Sir F. Fremantle: Would my right hon. Friend look again into the question of the large number of nurses called up who have not been of use, and who would be of a great deal more use in the small military hospitals?

OSTEOPATHS.

Mr. Rhys Davies: asked the Secretary of State for War whether the General Council and Register of Osteopaths have


offered their services to his Department; and whether men serving in the Army will be entitled to the advantages of osteopathic treatment during the emergency?

Mr. Stanley: An offer of services was received last November from the General Council and Register of Osteopaths, and they were informed that the offer was appreciated and that, if those osteopaths who hold a legal qualification to practise medicine in this country would register for military service with the Central Emergency Committee of the British Medical Association, they would be considered for commissions in the Royal Army Medical Corps where they would have opportunities of exercising their special skill.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: Will the services of bonesetters be utilised also, as very useful services can be performed by them?

Mr. Stanley: I do not know whether we have received any communication from bonesetters as such, but their services would certainly be considered, on the same terms as those of osteopaths.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: If the condition is that they have to be registered, there may be no chance of using them.

Mr. Ammon: Does that mean that a man like Sir Ernest Barker is ineligible, in view of his work in the last war?

Mr. Stanley: It is impossible in connection with matters of this kind for the Army to alter the whole of the medical system.

Sir Herbert Williams: Can the Minister say whether all the qualified medical men who join the Army will be compelled to start as stretcher bearers?

Mr. Stanley: Exceptions are made to the rule about service in the ranks in the cases of officers required with special qualifications, for instance, medical qualifications.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Is not this rather a reflection upon what has become an honourable profession?

TRAINING UNITS (INSTRUCTIONAL STAFF).

Mr. Robert Gibson: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware

that the practice of stationing Scottish warrant officers who are graded category, home defence only, in England for instructional duties, and of sending similar English warrant officers to Scotland, causes the maximum inconvenience to these men and their wives and families; and whether he will reconsider and reverse this practice so as to allow such warrant officers the benefit of spending week-end leave with their wives and families?

Mr. Stanley: As the great majority of training units are located in England, it is inevitable that part of the instructional staff of such units in England should be drawn from Scottish personnel. It is not the practice to send English warrant officers to training units located in Scotland, but it may sometimes be necessary to do so in the case, for instance, of specialist appointments.

Mr. Gibson: Am I to understand from the right hon. Gentleman's answer that where possible these warrant officers with instructional duties will be stationed as near home as possible?

Mr. Stanley: Yes, certainly.

PSYCHOLOGICAL SPECIALISTS.

Dr. Howitt: asked the Secretary of State for War how many psychological specialists were called up in December, 1939, and how many of them have been engaged in doing psychological work since they have been called up?

Mr. Stanley: Nine officers were commissioned in the Royal Army Medical Corps during December, 1939, for employment in psychiatric work. One is employed in special work, and the remainder are doing general duty until their services are required in a special capacity.

Dr. Howitt: Will the Minister make an inquiry into the whole of this matter to see how essential it is that more specialists in neurosis should be appointed in all parts of this country? In the last war 10 out of every 1,000 of the troops abroad were victims of neurosis and three out of every 1,000 in this country. Does he not think that there should be more specialists in this country?

Mr. Stanley: The hon. Gentleman asked me how many had been called up in the month of December. A number of


specialists in this class of case have been called up but, the fighting not having started, the cases are not as numerous as they were in the last war or as might have been anticipated, and many of these men at the moment are being employed in general work.

Mr. Boyce: Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that these men are not lost, as many of our most distinguished specialists were in the last war, in doing general services?

Mr. Stanley: They are being called up for this purpose, but fortunately owing to there having been no fighting on the Western Front the cases of neurosis are few. Naturally, their services are used for general purposes as there are only a few at present suffering from neurosis.

BRITISH FORCES, MEDICAL SERVICES.

Sir J. Leech: asked the Prime Minister (1) whether he will move to appoint a Committee of this House to investigate complaints of carelessness and inefficiency on the part of the Army Medical Service officials, with allegations of neglect of the sick and the avoidable spreading of pneumonia, arising from a policy of hardening the troops;
(2) whether his attention has been drawn to the complaints and criticisms from authorities representing the civilian medical profession, about the suitability or adequacy of the Government's medical services provided to home units under the War Office, the Air Ministry and the Women's Auxiliary Forces; and will he obtain and issue a report on the professional non-official criticisms of the staffing and arrangements for medical and surgical treatment of the sick under the control of Government Departments, with a view to meeting these criticisms?

The Prime Minister (Mr. Chamberlain): While it is true that the sudden increase in the size of the Forces, their wide distribution, and necessary movements have caused difficulties in regard to medical arrangements, and these difficulties have been accentuated by the recent influenza epidemic, the Departments concerned are doing their utmost to remedy any deficiencies. All complaints and criticisms which have been received have been promptly and carefully investigated,

though many have been found to be inaccurate and exaggerated. I do not think, therefore, that investigation by a. Committee of this House, or any special report, is required, and I would add that the suggestion that the health of the troops has been allowed to suffer through a policy of hardening them cannot be too strongly repudiated.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE.

DOLLAR SECURITIES (GOVERNMENT PURCHASE).

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will confer with the Minister of Agriculture, with a view to setting aside some part of the funds provided by the sale of American securities by British nationals, for the creation of a long-term Government loan available to all farmers at a low rate of interest, say 3 per cent., which would enable them to replace their existing bank advance on more favourable terms and provide additional working capital to ensure the maximum output from the farms?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Simon): My hon. Friend's proposal would appear to be based on a misconception. The Treasury are purchasing certain American securities from British holders for sterling with a view to their eventual realisation for dollars. This operation does not provide the Treasury with additional funds: it only provides dollars in place of sterling.

Mr. De la Bère: If the Government were to float a long-term loan on the value of these securities from which they could advance money to the farmers at not more than 3½ per cent. this, coupled with the guaranteed prices, would enable them to pay a minimum wage to their farm workers, and would not that form a valuable nucleus for a long-term Government agricultural policy?

Sir J. Simon: I think that on reflection my hon. Friend will see that what the Treasury is doing is providing itself with dollars, and that this is not a very fitting method of doing what he desires.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the reasons which


led the Treasury, under a recent Order, to fix the price it did for the acquisition of dollar securities; whether negotiations have yet been concluded for their sale, and, if so, to whom and upon what terms?

Sir J. Simon: The price fixed was the sterling equivalent of the price for the securities in the New York market on 17th February, the date of the making of the Treasury Order, in accordance with the provisions of the Defence (Finance) Regulations. The securities will be realised as and when seems desirable.

EXPORTS (CURRENCY DEPRECIATION).

Mr. Wilmot: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the failure of the depreciation of sterling at the beginning of the war to bring about an adequate expansion of exports, he will give an assurance that, in view of its grave effects in other directions, currency depreciation will not again be resorted to as a means of stimulating exports?

Sir J. Simon: I can assure the hon. Member that currency depreciation will not be resorted to as a means of stimulating exports by seeking an unreasonable competitive exchange advantage. I cannot accept his implication that this policy was adopted on the outbreak of war, for this is not the case.

Mr. Wilmot: If that be the case, may I ask for what reason depreciation was resorted to in the early months of the war?

Sir J. Simon: I think I should say that the true level of sterling was below that at which it stood in the period prior to the war, and at the outbreak of war we felt it was a wise step to allow the pound to fall to a rate which did represent its true economic level.

FINLAND (BRITISH INVESTMENTS).

Mr. Daggar: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state the amount of British capital invested in Finland, and what conditions, if any, are imposed upon such investments?

Sir J. Simon: The amount of British capital invested in Finland is not large, but I have no information as to the actual figure. The investment of capital abroad has, since the outbreak of war, been governed by the provisions of the Defence (Finance) Regulations.

Mr. Davidson: Does the Chancellor of the Exchequer realise that much inspired propaganda is being spread about British capital in Finland, and does he not think it would be wise to obtain the figures and submit them to the House?

Sir J. Simon: I do not know to what the hon. Member is referring. Perhaps he will give me some information privately.

Mr. Hannah: Is not our sympathy with Finland entirely separate from money considerations?

PERPETUAL PENSIONS (LORD NELSON).

Mr. Davidson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the last commutation of pensions took place in this country; how many pensions were affected; and whether he will approach the present Lord Nelson with a view to obtaining his agreement to a commutation of his pension?

Sir J. Simon: As other civil pensions (apart from compensation allowances granted on abolition of office) are not commutable, I assume that the hon. Member is referring to perpetual pensions, which are commutable under the Consolidated Fund (Permanent Charges Redemption) Act, 1873. Such pensions have been commuted individually as opportunities arose: the last of them was commuted in 1925. It was stated by my predecessor on 5th May, 1932, in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Wall send (Miss Ward), that he was satisfied that no useful steps could be taken in the then circumstances towards the commutation of Lord Nelson's pension. This is still the position.

Mr. Davidson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the recent publicity given to this particular pension of Lord Nelson's has aroused widespread indignation in the country; and in view of his call for national economy, will he not try to obtain a reasonable agreement immediately with regard to this perpetual pension?

Sir J. Simon: No doubt this pension, which was given long ago and by an Act passed by this House, is not the sort of pension which would be given to-day, but at the same time public faith is involved here.

Mr. Woodburn: In view of the fact that altering it at the moment might cause hardship to the person concerned, will the Chancellor in his forthcoming Budget consider introducing a special death duty for this type of pension and remove it from the Statute Book?

Mr. Anstruther-Gray: Is it not a fact that the Nelson spirit continues to cause dismay to the enemies of the British Empire?

RAILWAY FINANCE CORPORATION, LIMITED.

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether, in connection with the board of directors of the Railway Finance Corporation, Limited, which consists of five members, four of whom are directors and the fifth the chief cashier of the Bank of England, he will consider nominating one or more independent directors, since the Treasury are committed by guarantee as to both principal and interest for a sum exceeding £26,000,000 which this company, with an authorised and issued capital of £100 in shares of £1 each, has lent to the four main line railways?

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Crookshank): The appointment of the present directors was approved by the Treasury and no change is required. The Railway Finance Corporation is a convenient piece of technical machinery for giving effect to the agreement between the Treasury and the railway companies which is set out in the schedule to the Railways (Agreement) Act, 1935.

Mr. De la Bère: May I ask why this cheap money should be provided without any independent supervision? Is it not true to say that the whole of it is in the hands of the railway directors; and if it is just to provide this cheap money for the railways why should it not be provided for agriculture?

BUILDING SOCIETIES (MORTGAGE INTEREST).

Sir Patrick Hannon: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury under what authority notices have been issued by certain permanent building societies calling for the payment of mortgages by

the end of three months or, as an alternative, increasing the mortgage interest by ½ per cent., making it 5 per cent. instead of the existing 4½ per cent.?

Captain Crookshank: These are matters arising out of private contracts between building societies and borrowers. If notices such as those referred to in the Question have been issued, it is to be assumed that they are in accordance with the terms of the contract in each case.

Sir P. Hannon: May I consult my right hon. and gallant Friend on this matter?

Captain Crookshank: Yes, Sir, if the hon. Gentleman likes, but he must remember that it is no concern of mine.

Mr. Wilmot: Will the Minister inform building societies that it is not in accordance with Government policy for the rates of interest to be raised in this way?

Captain Crookshank: Building societies are, no doubt, as well aware of the Government's policy as anybody else in this country.

MINISTRY OF INFORMATION (STAFF).

Mrs. Adamson: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on whose authority the fee-charging agency of Miss Ida Parrott, Africa House, Kings-way, was authorised to offer employment in the Ministry of Information to applicants for work; and what steps will be taken to ensure that such methods shall not be used by other Departments?

Captain Crookshank: I understand that some weeks age the Ministry of Information urgently required temporary typing staff which the Ministry of Labour were not then able to supply. They, therefore, by arrangement with the Ministry of Labour, approached other sources and one girl was engaged through the agency mentioned. As regards the second part of the Question, all Departments are well aware that vacancies for temporary staff should be filled through the machinery of the Ministry of Labour, and I do not think that further instructions are called for.

Mrs. Adamson: Is it not a fact that when this matter was raised previously a


pledge was given to this House that all such vacancies would be filled through the machinery of the Ministry of Labour, and will the Minister take steps to see that that pledge is honoured in future?

Captain Crookshank: As regards any previous Question, I remember the terms of it, and I said that I had no specific information and asked for details, and it is only since the hon. Lady put down this Question that I have been able to make the necessary investigation. As regards the second part of the Question, as I have already said, it is an instruction that all vacancies should be filled through the machinery of the Ministry of Labour.

MILITARY SERVICE (CIVIL SERVANTS).

Mr. Jagger: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether temporary civil servants over the age of 25 are exempt from military service?

Captain Crookshank: I hope to make an announcement on this subject shortly.

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS (CUSTODY).

Mr. A. Edwards: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he has taken any steps to investigate the circumstances under which Government officials have mislaid or lost official documents recently, and whether any punishment is contemplated in the case of negligence on the part of Government employés?

Captain Crookshank: Standing instructions exist in all Departments with regard to the need for exercising special care in the custody of official documents, but the investigation of any case of loss is a Departmental matter. I am, however, satisfied that in the event of negligence being proved the Department concerned would take appropriate action.

Mr. Edwards: Has the Minister made investigations into those matters which I submitted to him?

Captain Crookshank: No, Sir, because, as I have just explained, this is a Departmental matter. It is for the Minister concerned to make investigations, and not for the Treasury.

NAVY, ARMY AND AIR FORCE INSTITUTES.

Mr. Davidson: asked the Secretary of State for War to give a list of salaries paid to the manager and the members of the Board of Management of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes?

Mr. Stanley: The representatives of the Service Departments on the Board of Management draw their pay or retired pay, as the case may be, from public funds. Any additional sums paid to these officers in respect of their membership of the board, and the salaries of the other members of the board, are not a charge on public funds and are the responsibility of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes.

Mr. Davidson: Is the Minister aware that there is a general opinion that the Board of Management of this organisation draw large salaries created from profits taken from the soldiers and sailors, and does he not think that this is a reprehensible practice and that it would be better to give better quality to the soldiers and sailors and less profits to the Board of Management?

Mr. Stanley: If the hon. Gentleman will look at the last statement of accounts which is always available for the information of this House in the Library he will see there that the total of remuneration given to the Board of Management in the year ending 1938 was rather over £2,000.

Mr. Davidson: If the Minister will taste some of the stuff which the N.A.A.F.I. sell he will agree that I am perfectly correct in saying that they should have reduced salaries.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. Attlee: May I ask the Prime Minister what business it is proposed to take in the event of the suspension of the Eleven o'clock Rule to-night?

The Prime Minister: It is proposed to suspend the Eleven o'clock Rule in order to obtain the Navy Votes. We also propose to take the Report stage of the Old Age Pensions Money Resolution, which is exempted Business, and the Committee and remaining stages of the Mental Deficiency (Scotland) Bill [Lords].

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]

NATIONAL EXPENDITURE.

Ordered,
That a Message be sent to the Lords to request that their Lordships will be pleased to give leave to the Lord Portal to attend to be examined, as a Witness, before the Sub-Committee on Home Defence Services, appointed by the Select Committee on National Expenditure."—[Mr. Ede.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

NAVY ESTIMATES, 1940.

NAVY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1939.

MR. CHURCHILL'S STATEMENT.

Order for Committee read.

3.59 p.m.

The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Churchill): I beg to move, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
I come before the House, on behalf of the Navy, to ask for a few men, some ships, and a little money, to enable them to carry on their work, which has become important to us all at the present time. In making this request, I am emboldened by the remarkable consideration with which naval affairs have been treated during this war by all parties in the House. It seems to me that since I last presented Navy Estimates in war-time—25 years ago, almost to a day—there has grown up a very much wider comprehension of the conditions under which the Navy and the Admiralty do their duty; of their difficulties, and of the certainty that mistakes will be made both at Whitehall and on salt water, and that, however hard we try, a painful drain of losses will be sustained.
I am grateful to the House—not only to my hon. Friends on this side, but to the right hon. Member who speaks for the Opposition and to the Leader of the Liberal party, for this spirit of tolerance, of understanding, and even indulgence with which we have been and are being treated; and I can assure the House that it will only make us more zealous in the discharge of our task, in order to give satisfaction and win approval by producing good results. The earnestness and vigour with which Parliament is supporting the Crown in waging this very grievous war, and the unstinted money contribution which the House of Commons has made for that purpose, imposes the highest obligation upon the armed Forces, and upon the Parliamentary Ministers entrusted with their superintendence and direction.
I regret that it is not expedient to lay precise facts and figures of the proposed strength and cost of the Navy in the coming year before the House, as we

should naturally desire to do. In the first place, it is physically impossible to make exact estimates for contingencies which are constantly changing; and, in the second place, there is no need to tell the enemy more than is good for him about what we are doing. We, therefore, ask the House to show us a special mark of confidence by allowing us to present only token votes. But this must not in the slightest degree relax or baffle the vigilance of Parliament in preventing waste and exposing errors, should such be detected.
The Parliamentary Committees which the House desired, and which the Chancellor of the Exchequer instituted, are now at work in all three Services. I have given particular directions at the Admiralty that all officials and officers required shall attend before them, and assist them in their work. Many have already been examined, but they can be recalled at any time, and there are many others who have not yet been seen; and all those have full liberty to disclose all matters bearing on the subject except those which, being of a specially secret nature, the Committee themselves would not desire to know. Should any difficulty arise, I hold myself entirely at the disposal of the Committee examining Admiralty expenditure. I hope they will not confine themselves to taking evidence in London, but will go to the naval ports and establishments and see things on the spot for themselves.
Of course, there is bound to be both extravagance and waste in time of war. In our country, accustomed to strict Parliamentary supervision, this waste arises very rarely from fraud or corruption. It arises sometimes from inefficiency, and is capable of correction. It arises most of all, I think, from excessive zeal in preparing against dangers which often change, and sometimes fade as soon as they are faced; and still more from the well-intentioned desire of every branch and section to reach 100 percent. standard of safety, which, of course, is never attainable in war. An officer, in any station, serves his country best by asking for no more than he needs for his task. It is not patriotic to ask for the moon—and you do not get it, either. The Navy has borne, and is bearing, the main weight of the war up to the present, and many vexatious and dangerous forms of attack are directed upon us; but if at


any time in the future it becomes apparent that we have got the upper hand in an even more marked and decisive form than at present, I shall be the first to propose a review of our resources and requirements—and we have quite a lot—in order to aid the national war-effort in other directions.
That time has not yet come. We must clearly expect that attacks will be delivered upon the sea-power by which we live, on which all depends, on a far greater scale than anything we have so far beaten back and beaten down. We have been making, from the outset of the war, immense additional preparations to meet these reinforced attacks, whether they come from U-boats, or from the mine-laying of various kinds, or from the air.
Let me first say a word about the U-boat warfare. I have "opined"—if I may find an opportunity to give such a sorry word a job—and it seems to fit the case—that our killings of U-boats may be estimated at between two and four a week; but I qualified this by pointing out that it only applies to periods of U-boat activity; because, of course, when very few come out we could not achieve these figures. I believe it is safe to say that, by the end of 1939, the Germans had lost, from all causes, at least half the U-boat fleet with which they began the war. If we put that fleet at 70, this would leave them 35. On the other hand, I was in error when some months ago I told the House that the rate of German new building of U-boats must be counted at two per week. This and even more may be true in the future; but it was not true up to the end of 1939. I doubt very much whether even 10 fresh U-boats came into action in that period. Thus the enemy may have ended the year with about 45 U-boats, of which, of course, 20 would be required for training, leaving perhaps 25 for active operations. As these would work in two or three reliefs, the number at any one time cannot be very large. Indeed, our calculations show that it has probably not exceeded 10 operating at any one time. This figure must be compared with the figure of 60 all operating together which on three occasions marked the high peak of the great U-boat campaign which we wore down and broke in 1917.
We are getting an increasing number of U-boats. Since the New Year things have sharpened up on both sides, and we have had some quite exceptional weeks of proved results. I see it is said in the papers that another U-boat was sunk yesterday. We do not make announcements of U-boat sinkings unless there are some features of special interest. We leave them wrapped in mystery, but as this case has been mentioned I do not mind saying that it is an under-statement, because actually in the last two days there were one certain and two almost certain U-boat sinkings. This may be satisfactory so far as it goes, but when we remember the substantial losses we have suffered from just these few U-boats operating up to the present, the House will see how vast must be the preparations which we ought to make and which we have made to cope with the full scale of attack which may come upon us later on.
Hitherto we have been fighting with the very modest number of destroyers we had ready at the beginning of the war, supplemented by several hundreds of other small craft, the bulk converted from civilian use, but all armed with the Asdics, with the depth charge, and the gun. But with the passage of the summer the new building of U-boats will increasingly come into play, and we expect to meet these with our very large new buildings of craft specially adapted to their destruction. The token Estimates provide for an immense programme; in fact, we shall be building all this summer at our extreme capacity, subject only to one condition.
I have also undertaken, as the House will remember, at the request of the Cabinet, to try to make a large increase in the rate of merchant shipbuilding in order to replace inevitable losses. Obviously we have to balance one form of building against the other, and that is best done by making the Admiralty responsible for both. I told the House some days ago about this new responsibility which we have accepted. I hope to get, not only leading employers, but also leading trade unionists, into the new Department, so that both sides will be represented, will have a place in the honour of success, and will, I trust, pull together as they have never pulled before, which is very necessary.
The U-boat has been steadily driven from using the gun, with all its great advantages of speed, upon the surface into the more ruthless but less effective warfare by the torpedo; and it has been largely driven from using the torpedo to the laying of mines, magnetic and others, in the approaches to our harbours. The ordinary moored mines were familiar to us in the last war, and we had at one time upwards of 600 vessels engaged solely on the task of sweeping them up and keeping the channels clear. The use of the magnetic mine produces an additional complication. There is nothing particularly new or novel about it, although mechanically it is very nicely made. I feel entitled to say that we see our way to mastering this magnetic mine and other variants of the same idea. How this has been achieved is a detective story written in a language of its own. Magneticism is a fairly exact science, and its complications and refinements can all be explored and measured. To be modest, we do not feel at all outdone in science in this country by the Nazis. There are, of course, two stages in the process of dealing with the magnetic mine. The first is finding out what to do, and the second is applying this knowledge to practical conditions upon a very large scale. We are now far advanced upon the second stage, and although we must expect, perhaps in the immediate future, further much heavier attacks upon us by this method, we believe we shall find ourselves equipped to deal with them.
To cope with the mining attack, we have had to call upon the fishing fleets and upon the fishermen. Although this year we shall have about a quarter of a million sailors at our disposal, we had at the end of November to call for many thousand volunteers for mine-sweeping duties. There was a most willing response, but the engagement was for only three months. It is now clear that it must be greatly prolonged. The service is, of course, not only dangerous but arduous in a very high degree. However, our volunteers from the fishing fleets seem to have taken a liking to it, probably because everybody knows how very necessary it is to the country and that the job has to be done by men bred to the sea. In many sea ports over 75 per cent. of those who volunteered for three months

in November now wish to continue for the duration, and the Admiralty are going to meet their wish.
In their attack upon our shipping and neutral shipping the Germans have broken every rule hitherto accepted by the world for the regulation of mining warfare. But then, besides, there are the outrages they have committed upon the fishing fleets and upon small unarmed merchant vessels and upon the lightships which warn the mariners of all countries off the rocks and shoals. So execrable has been the behaviour of some of the German aviators in attacking harmless, unarmed vessels, in machine-gunning their crews when in the boats, and in describing on the radio what fun it was to see a little ship "crackling in flames like a Christmas-tree," that we have had to set about arming all our fishing boats and small craft with the means of defending themselves, because it was found that nothing gives better results in respect to one of these raiders than to fire upon it at once. We have reason to know that several of them have sheered off very quickly when even only fishermen newly given a weapon have fired back upon them. Thousands of guns of all sorts and sizes are being issued to our merchant and to our fishing fleets. The Nazis have retorted by saying that this entitles them to break all the conventions which they had already broken many times over. They may, of course, apply their methods on a larger scale, but they have not for some time been able to descend to any new levels of cruelty and disgrace.
I suppose the House realises that Herr Hitler and his Nazis have quite definitely exceeded the worst villainies which Imperial Germany committed in the late war. This brings me to a point that I should like to put to the House. One of the most extraordinary things that I have ever known in my experience is the way in which German illegalities, atrocities, and brutalities are coming to be accepted as if they were part of the ordinary day-to-day conditions of war. Why, Sir, the neutral Press makes more fuss when I make a speech telling them what is their duty than they have done when hundreds of their ships have been sunk and many thousands of their sailors have been drowned or murdered, for that is the right word, on the open sea. Apparently, according to the present doctrine of neutral States, strongly endorsed


by the German Government, Germany is to gain one set of advantages by breaking all the rules and committing foul outrages upon the seas, and then go on and gain another set of advantages through insisting whenever it suits her, upon the strictest interpretation of the International Code she has torn to pieces. It is not at all odd that His Majesty's Government are getting rather tired of it. I am getting rather tired of it myself. For my part, I say without hesitation that in the interpretation of the rules and conventions affecting neutrals humanity rather than legal pedantry must be our guide; and, judging by the "Altmark" episode, which gave so much pleasure last week, this seems to be the opinion, not only of the British nation, but of the civilised world.
We must be very thankful that we have our sea power, that we have our Navy, the champion of freedom across the centuries, strong enough and fierce enough to beat down all this wickedness and degeneracy, strong enough to enable us to help our Allies by land and air in their splendid effort—this great institution, which has lived through so many wars, but is still the foundation, in spite of all the changes that have taken place, of our ability to survive and to serve the causes which are now at stake. But let us look at the foundations upon which our sea power rests. Some people think that great battleships are no use at all, that they are only anxieties at sea and a useless burden in port. Everyone sees this war being fought from day to day by the small craft, and they see that the little ships have always to go ahead to protect the big ones, so they ask, "Why have the big ones at all?"
But this is a very superficial view. If we had not got at the present time an unquestioned superiority in battleships, the German heavy cruisers would come out into the Atlantic Ocean and, without fear of being brought to account, would be able to obstruct, if not to arrest, the whole of the enormous trade without which we could not live. They might make temporary bases in distant quarters of the globe, they might establish themselves in positions where we should have no means whatever with which to attack them, and in this way they would soon bring about our mortal ruin. Happily, we have far greater strength in capital ships than the enemy; and if at any time

they break out, as they may do, we are always ready to meet them with much larger forces and bring them to battle and destroy them, as we did in the isolated case of the. "Graf Spee," although, of course, this would have to be on a much larger scale. Without a superior battle fleet we could not exercise any command of the sea, nor even keep ourselves alive in food.
During the last war we had to keep always ready 30 or40 battleships, with all their attendant squadrons and flotillas at short notice, in order to fight a main battle with the enemy at any time. But now this preoccupation is greatly diminished. The enemy have only two really big ships, and they cannot attempt to form a line of battle. We, on the other hand, have at least three, if not four, possible lines of battle, not one of which the enemy could face in a fought-out engagement. Therefore we are able to dispose our ships much more widely about the oceans, and at the same time to keep ample forces at hand and always at sea ready to engage his principal vessels should they present themselves, and it is upon this fact that the whole of our sea control depends.
However, it must be remembered that at this moment there are no modern battleships in action. Many are building in various countries, but none is in commission. Through the various Treaties into which we entered, and upon which I have sometimes expressed my opinion in former times, all our capital ships are old. Some have been rebuilt, but all except three were approved by me when I was last at the Admiralty more than a quarter of a century ago. In fact, we are fighting this war with the battleships of the last war. This does not affect surface fighting, because our new ships will come along as soon as theirs, and in much greater numbers. In a short time the Fleet will be reinforced by five modern battleships of the King George V Class, against which the enemy, in a similar time, can only bring two. Therefore, we shall not be at any disadvantage so far as surface fighting is concerned.
But the fact that we are using old ships at this present time adds to our anxiety, because the attack from under-water or from the air has become far more formidable since they were built, for the torpedoes, mines and air bombs of 1940 are applied


to the structures of a bygone generation. Where one torpedo with a 500 lbs. head was fired in 1915, six may be fired in a volley with much heavier heads in 1940. The air bombs descending almost vertically are also a menace which ought not to be underrated, and which did not exist when most of our battleships were built. But the new ships which we are building, which we have accelerated, and which will be ready in time, are capable of standing up to the air bomb, and are far better adapted to under-water explosions than anything we have to-day. I do not wish, however, to raise any undue apprehensions about the strength of our existing ships. When the "Barham" was hit by a torpedo, although an old ship, she stood up well to the heavy blow, and was able to proceed under her own steam. She will soon be repaired and ready for sea. Again, when in the early part of December the "Nelson," the Home Fleet flagship, a more modern ship, but still 15 years old, was damaged by a magnetic mine, she was able to return to harbour under her own steam. She too will soon be rejoining the Fleet. This secret, of which many thousands of people were necessarily aware, was very well kept and has only just leaked out into Germany after it has ceased to have any importance. Apart from the "Royal Oak" and the "Courageous," no other large ship has been damaged or sunk—

Miss Wilkinson: Touch wood.

Mr. Churchill: I entirely sympathise with that feeling, but I can assure the hon. Member that I rarely like to be at any considerable distance from a piece of wood. But there is a difference in making predictions and in stating facts about the past, and facts which are known at the moment. So far as the future is concerned, I always speak with the greatest caution, but when you are making a statement of what the facts are at this moment, after six months of the war, on this occasion to the House, I think it is right to say what the state of affairs really is, because it is said that even Heaven itself cannot control the past. Therefore, I say that apart from the "Royal Oak" and the "Courageous," no other large ships have been damaged or sunk since the outbreak of war or during these very difficult winter months. I say difficult months, because not only

have our ships had constantly to keep the sea in sufficient strength amid the storms of a tempestuous winter, amid icy blizzards and high-running seas, but since the "Royal Oak" was sunk we have not had the use of Scapa Flow, which is, of course, our best strategic base, and which would save our ships from a great deal of unnecessary steaming through dangerous waters. "Under the adverse circumstances," if I may quote a hero's phrase, our ships, great and small, have been at sea more continually than was ever done or dreamed of in any previous war since the introduction of steam.
Their steaming capacity and the trustworthiness of their machinery is marvellous to me, because the last time I was here one always expected a regular stream of lame ducks from the Fleets to the dockyards with what was called "condenseritis" or heated bearings, or other mechanical defects. But now they seem to steam on for ever. Even ships with old engines, under modern care, have steamed 90days or more, out of the first 119 days of the war, ending at 31st December. This reflects the very greatest credit on the Engineering Branch of the Royal Navy, and I wish this afternoon to pay my tribute to them here in the House of Commons, and ask the House to join me so that these many thousands of faithful, skilful, untiring engineers may learn, as they will learn, that we here in London understand what they have done and what they are doing, and that we admire their work and thank them for it. We must never forget the man behind the gun, but we must also remember in these modern times the man around the engine, without whom nothing could be done, who does not see the excitements of the action, and does not ask how things are going, but who runs a very big chance of going down with the ship, should disaster come.

Mr. Hayday: Stokers as well.

Mr. Churchill: Certainly, all who are concerned with the engine-room, the stokers, and the engine-room parties equally. I am very much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for including them specifically, because certainly the House wishes to express to all of them, stokers-as well, the sense they have of the fine achievement which has been produced by


their devotion in the actual running of our ships since the outbreak of the war.
I have several times spoken about the destroyer and submarine Flotillas, and the Coastal Command Air Force, which is their ally and friend, but to-day I ask the House to pay its tribute especially to the officers and men in our heavy ships and cruisers who are nearly always out on the rough waters, amid the mines and torpedoes, some of which must often be only very narrowly avoided, and some of which we never hear of at all; and I ask the House to think of them, and particularly of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Charles Forbes, upon whose indomitable shoulders the direct impact of prolonged and wearing responsibility week after week descends.
When people wonder that we can move so freely about these dangerous seas, and move great masses of men and material from one far point to another, let them recognise that the Home Fleet is the supreme and final guarantee. Upon this our contraband control is erected. The Straits of Dover are, of course, closed and sealed. The Northern patrol is maintained by a strongly supported cordon from Scotland to Greenland. But the distance is 1,000 miles, 800 miles of sea. During the winter when fearful gales blow and snowstorms, rainstorms and mists descend upon the sea, when it is night for three-quarters of every 24 hours, it is not surprising that a certain proportion of enemy ships manage to run the gauntlet, and, striking the Norwegian Coast in the Far North, wriggle their way down the 800 miles of territorial waters which carry them into close protection of the main German naval and air forces. Nevertheless, the majority of German ships that have tried to come home have either scuttled themselves at some point on their journey, or have been captured by us as prizes. Now and again a raider has broken out, has lain quiet in the Atlantic for some time, and then crept back. There was one that did not even creep back.
Neutral shipping in the main comes voluntarily into our contraband control stations, or in many cases avails itself of the convenience of being franked for the voyage by the Navicert documents which can readily be obtained at the port of departure. There is a very little doubt that the whole of this Northern system of

contraband control will become more efficient as our forces increase, as the long nights turn into long days, and as summer weather enables our amphibian aircraft to range constantly over the whole area. For the rest, the efficiency of our contraband control, whether in the North or in the Mediterranean, depends not upon the Navy but upon political decisions; concessions made rightly to neutrals, trade agreements, and the like. There would be no difficulty from a naval point of view in making the blockade more severe. It cost us no more in naval exertion to add the control of German exports to the control already established since the beginning of the war on German imports. But no one must neglect the serious character of the political decisions which must rule and which are dictated by our relations with various neutral countries. A balance has to be struck between the full efficiency of naval control and the hardships it might inflict on friendly neutrals. This is not a matter for the Navy but for the War Cabinet, and it has of course to be reviewed from time to time.
Where then, Sir, do we stand at the end of the first six months of war? We have lost 63,000 tons of warships, or about half the losses of the first six months of the last war. We have lost on the balance of loss and gain less than 200,000 tons of merchant shipping, taking new building and prizes on the one side, out of a total of 21,000,000 of all types-or 17½million in ocean-going shipping, flying the British flag. This figure of less than 200,000 tons in six months may be compared with 450,000 tons net loss in the single deadly month of April, 1917 We have captured more cargoes in tonnage destined for the enemy than we have lost ourselves. During the first two months of war there was inevitable dislocation. But each month there has been a steady improvement in spite of the deterioration of the weather, and in January the Navy carried safely into British harbours, in the teeth of the U-boats, of the mines, and of the winter gales and fog, considerably more than four-fifths of the peace-time average taken over the whole, summer and winter alike, of the three preceding years.
Our exports, measured in tons—and it is with tonnage that the Navy is concerned—were equal in December and January to our exports coming in in those


months of the last peace-time year of 1938. But now with spring and summer at hand, there is to be expected a considerable normal seasonal increase in the volume of traffic by sea, and apart from any new development of enemy action, a matter which can never be overlooked in any provisions for the future, there is no reason why we should not improve upon these figures. When we consider the great number of British ships which have been withdrawn for Naval Service, or for the transport of our Armies across the Channel or across the globe, there is nothing in these results which—to put it mildly—should cause despondency or alarm, or which justifies the idea that we cannot carry on our national life and the war upon which the national life is centred, with increasing vigour. Any reductions and austerities in home consumption, which we have found, or may find, it necessary to impose upon ourselves, are not due to any failure of the Navy to keep the seas open, but to the need of making prudent preparations against the unknown, and of raising our war effort to the highest pitch.
In 1915, speaking from this Box, on the Motion, Mr. Speaker, that your predecessor should leave the Chair—which he did—I was able to say that our command of the seas was more thorough than ever before in our history, and—although I was not allowed to preside over it—it so continued for more than eighteen months. I will not make any prophecies about the future which is doubly veiled by the obscurities and uncertainties of war. But personally I shall not be content, nor do I think the House should be content, if we do not reach and maintain a control of the seas equal to the highest standards of the last war and enable the Navy once again to play a decisive part in the general victory of the Allies.

4.37 p.m.

Mr. A. V. Alexander: I suppose there has been no occasion in the history of our country when the Navy Estimates have been presented in circumstances of greater danger and of greater urgency. I do not think the First Lord would need to apologise for the lack of detailed information in the published Paper for, although on the occasion of the consideration of the Estimates in 1915–1917, we did then have a detailed Vote A, it is

obvious to us that it would be unwise to have such detailed information to-day. We have had to-day from the First Lord, as we expect from him, a statement which was comprehensive and inspiriting and did not lack in the usual light and shade. We would all, I think, like to say to him this afternoon that however much many of us have differed from him, and will continue to differ, on certain political and economic questions, on this matter of leading the British Navy against threats to the security of our nation, and its fight against the aggressor, we not only feel he has done well, but we wish him well. Although the statement has had to be of a certain character necessary in wartime, the First Lord himself—I think he indicated it in the opening of his statement—would be the last to wish to preclude from the discussions in this House anything in the nature of really fair and constructive criticism.
I shall not embark in any party sense this afternoon upon a field of criticism, but whatever we say on this side in regard to this great Service of ours in the present time the criticism will all be in the direction of reaching our national objective, and putting strength and heart into the men and officers of our Fleet. We do desire, from this side of the House, to pay our tribute to the work of the Royal Navy since war broke out; it certainly has been magnificent. There may have been wars of the past in which greater naval forces have been deployed over the Seven Seas at a given time, but there can be few precedents for the pressure upon the time of ships and men that has occurred in the carrying out of their duties of the last six months. I should like to say that I was grateful to the First Lord and the Board of Admiralty for the privilege of going to visit the Commander-in-Chief and discussing the situation with him freely and frankly. I thought it was a good thing for the Board to permit that, and I should like to pay tribute to that great officer, who has done a very great piece of work. What impressed me most of all about him was the complete lack of frills, which, of course, we expect from naval officers, and his quiet confidence and cheerful outlook on the task to be accomplished.
I thought, when I listened on the wireless on Friday afternoon to the speeches of the officers who commanded the


"Exeter" and "Ajax" in the memorable action of the River Plate, that there was something of the true standing, character, and purpose of those who led our naval forces. They have been dealing with an enemy who, however he may have lulled some in this country for the time being by the absence of direct bombing attack, has proved in his actions against our naval forces and the Mercantile Marine how utterly ruthless he has been, and intends to be. In the nature of that attack nothing could have been finer than the work of our Fleet. I do not think the First Lord intended this, because he has already referred to the matter on previous occasions, but I feel that we should recognise in the House of Commons to-day the very great service which the Royal Navy feel has been rendered by their colleagues of the French Fleet. The position of that Fleet, with the very important contribution which it makes to-day, with its two modern battle cruisers and a number of capital ships, apart from smaller forces, is a tribute to the work of its present Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Darlan, during the last decade and a half. I feel that during the last six months they have done magnificent work on the sea.
I would like to say a word or two with regard to what the Fleet has accomplished, if it will not be thought I am painting a lily to the sketch given by the First Lord. May I give it, not as one close up against it in management and direction, like the First Lord, but as one who looks at it from a private position? It seems to me that the Fleet and its work stand out in two special respects, in regard both to defence and offence. It has never slackened in its defence of the vital interests of getting the supplies of food for our sustenance and our raw materials so that we may continue to prosecute our purpose. I do not know whether there is anything comparable in our naval history with the kind of patrols our Fleet have carried out in the Northern passage in the face of increasing use by submarines and raiders of that passage in the absence of the mine barrage we had at the end of the last war. The continuous and ceaseless patrols in the Arctic seas would have tried the finest training, the greatest physique, and strength of spirit that could be found in the world. They have come through that trial with great success.
In the anti-submarine campaign, while we may have hoped that it would have been better, I think in our heart of hearts we must admit that the defence of the Navy has been more successful than some of us feared might be the case. The First Lord has estimated that probably 35 of these submarines were killed by the end of December, and I suppose it is not too much for an amateur to estimate that at the present time we can put that figure at nearer 50. In that case it seems quite clear that if we have not got completely on top, at least we are overtaking and checking the very serious menace of the submarine campaign. Moreover, as compared with the last war, the early introduction and success of the marshalling and conduct of the convoys is a matter for congratulation. We have lost a great many of our ships on this occasion by the action of the enemy through mines, and while the First Lord was able to amuse the House with his reference to the measures taken to deal with the magnetic mine, I feel that the nation has reason to be pleased with what has been accomplished by the Board of Admiralty and its experts in this matter. A very urgent and very great danger had to be met. The losses in the course of a couple of months might have been very much larger, but, as a matter of fact, the record of the destruction and collection of magnetic mines bodes well for the strength of the Navy to deal with any expansion of that menace. In spite of all these menaces from which the Navy has been defending us, the real fact is that in our daily food and in most of the things which we have been accustomed to get, the public so far has not suffered any great inconvenience. That is a remarkable fact at the end of six months of strenuous war at sea, however less strenuous the war may have been in other fields.
Then there is the question of offence. While there are always people who are asking when the forces of the country are going to be put on the offensive and make an effort at shortening the war, there is this fact to be put to the credit of the Royal Navy on the offensive side, that they have cleared enemy commerce and enemy belligerent ships from practically all the seas. You have great difficulty now in finding any German surface ships anywhere on the seas. They rarely come out, and when they do, sooner or


later they are caught. That is a great achievement. The battle of the River Plate was clearly a real offensive as well as being a defensive action. I cannot speak too highly of the nerve, the skill, and the courage of those who led the submarines which came back from their successful attacks upon German enemy ships in the Heligoland Bight. Only those who know the circumstances and conditions can understand exactly what that action meant. On both these grounds I think we can congratulate the Board of Admiralty to-day.
There is one other thing I must mention. I am more convinced than ever that to-day the spirit of our people is behind the Royal Navy. I am quite certain of that. The terrors of German ruthlessness have produced no change in the enthusiasm of our young men. I hesitate to tell the First Lord how many letters I have received in the last few weeks—always repeated in numbers after the sinking of one of our naval ships—from young men who, because I had some acquaintance with the Admiralty in days gone by, think I can do something to get them into the Fleet where they want to serve. It is not merely a question of a spirit to serve, which we all accept with so much gratitude from a body of seafaring men like the fishermen who have been doing such magnificent work, but a spirit which is inherent in our young people, who will volunteer for the most dangerous tasks in the Air Force, and which impels them to ask me to help them on to the lower deck of the Navy, although they have seen quite clearly that up to the present the naval service is the most dangerous and arduous of the three. It shows that the spirit of the people is behind the Fleet.
Having paid one or two tributes which I desired to pay to the Navy, there are one or two points which I desire to put to the First Lord. It is true to say that, taking the Fleet to-day, in spite of the losses which the First Lord has detailed, the Navy in relation to the forces opposed to it is in no way impaired in its fighting strength. I had rather hoped that the First Lord would have told us a little about the circumstances in which some of the losses occurred, provided that he did not give any undue solace to the enemy, and what steps are being

taken to prevent a recurrence of the kind of losses that have happened. The loss of the "Royal Oak" caused some anxiety to some of us, and we should like to think that Scapa Flow will be available for use again as soon as possible. We do not under-estimate the increasing dangers of a base of that kind in view of the known increase of air power in attack, but I hope that by now we have so reorganised our defences in that important base, from the point of view of a normal sea guard and anti-aircraft preparations, that we shall be able once more economically—and economy in this matter is important not only so far as fuel is concerned, but for the rest of the personnel of the Fleet—to use it again.
I have also been rather anxious as to the circumstances in which our three sub marines were lost in the Heligoland Bight. We were all heartened to hear that many of the crews of two of the submarines were saved. We admire the nerve of our submarine commanders and the skill with which they negotiate dangerous channels and avoid many pitfalls of one sort and another, but I have wondered whether there were any mistakes which could have been avoided, mistakes in signals and instructions and in charts; in any case, we should like to be assured that we have learned something from the disaster and that we shall be able to avoid another of a similar character. However, I do not wish to press that matter further. Our losses have not been as heavy as they might have been, but they have been grievous, and I am sure the First Lord will agree that every effort must be made to minimise not only the loss of tonnage and material but also losses in personnel. That is a point on which many of my colleagues and myself have been some what concerned. We recognise that the Fleet have to face many dangers, but when one thinks of the losses after the sinking of the "Courageous" and the "Exmouth" and the "Daring," and the torpedoing of the "Royal Oak," we wonder whether we have yet achieved all that we might achieve in the preparation and use of safety devices. I quite recognise that at the time of attack you may be dealing with a variety of circumstances—

Mr. Churchill: The "Daring" sank in 30 seconds.

Mr. Alexander: You may be dealing with a variety of circumstances, sea and weather, time, light and fog, but what I feel is that although a ship may go down rapidly and in the dark, and some of our biggest losses have been in the night, we ought to be able in these modern days to protect our men by means of rafts and lifebelts and to collect as many of them as possible, subject, of course, to this rather hard overriding rule, which we did not observe when the "Cressy," "Aboukir" and "Hogue" were sunk, that the safety of the Fleet or the convoy comes before the safety of the few. I should like to know whether we are making progress in the preparation and use of new safety devices and some means of identification in the dark when men are still swimming for their lives.

Mr. Churchill: The Parliamentary Secretary will be able to give the right hon. Member a reply on these matters when he speaks later in the Debate.

Mr. Alexander: Let me take the question of the recognition of the services of the personnel. We are indebted for the early action taken to recognise special services. It has been very well done, but we should like another form of recognition. We should like to see an increase in promotions from the lower deck. We were grateful for the statement of the First Lord on 4th October as to the increase in the number of promotions contemplated in a year, about 75;and he did, in reply to a Supplementary Question, go so far as to say that that was not necessarily the maximum. But with the rapid growth of personnel in war-time, and with, I fear, the possibility of having to keep the personnel at that figure for a year or two after the war, I think it may be argued that we should have a better arrangement for promotion from the lower deck. I welcome very much the announcement made by the Admiralty in the "Times" to-day of a new proposal for speeding up the promotion of warrant officers to lieutenant engineers. That is a good recognition of these warrant officers, and I hope it will lead to a great amount of satisfaction.
The next point I should like to make in regard to the recognition of the personnel refers to a matter which is put to me in a large number of letters which I receive from the wives and relatives of the men. At the present time, with the increasing

cost of food, they feel that there ought to be some reconsideration of the allowances for children. I have heard of no great shouts about the allowances for wives, but I have received a great number of complaints about the children's allowances. I should be glad if the Board of Admiralty could, consistent with the general national interest, make a re-examination of the present scale of allowances for children in order to see whether it can be improved.
I turn now to the question of naval expansion and equipment. I was encouraged by the First Lord's remarks about the growing strength of our naval tonnage, but I should like to be told—as far as it can be stated in time of war—how much the tempo of production has been improved during the last six months. How quickly has it been speeded up?

Mr. Churchill: Warship building?

Mr. Alexander: I am thinking of the general programme, including capital ships, aircraft carriers, cruisers and destroyers. I am certain that, as the war goes on, we shall need these ships, and need them very badly. Perhaps I may put the question in this way. Is the First Lord now satisfied with the new rate of progress?

Mr. Churchill: The rate of progress has been much accelerated, but, of course, I have also to consider merchant shipbuilding. The measure is the number of men available in the various yards, private and public, and the need for increasing that number of men is very great indeed. Warship building must have priority up to a certain point, but we have equally to replace our merchant tonnage. It does seem to me that at the present time the supply of labour is not adequate to the effort we should like to make in both these fields.

Mr. Alexander: The right hon. Gentleman's answer is reassuring in this respect, that the rate of progress is more rapid than some of us may have thought, perhaps; and during the right hon. Gentleman's term of office that rate has been speeded up. I am pleased that it is so, but still, I think that with a little collaboration with the workers' organisations we might get some more labour into the yards—for there are still men


capable of doing the work who are unemployed. For this reason, I was glad to learn of the First Lord's intention to introduce into the new Department at the Board of Admiralty not only representatives of the employers, but representatives of the trade unions. I hope that, not only with regard to the main programme, but with regard to the production of motor craft, something is being done which is effective. There is, however, one matter in connection with naval expansion and equipment about which we on this side are very concerned, and that is the armament of our merchant ships. Weeks and weeks ago the First Lord determined that, in view of the German ruthlessness and cruelty, our merchant ships should be armed. I do not criticise him in any way; the question is simply how quickly these merchant ships can be armed. I was reading again the Debates of 1917, and I came across the following passage in a speech made by Lord Carson—then Sir Edward Carson—on 21st February:
In the last two months the number of armed merchant ships has increased by 47·5 per cent."—
which did not tell us very much—
We had, in the first place, to get guns in competition with the Army. We had to get the mountings, and. above all, we had to get the gun ratings.
He went on to say:
Of armed merchantmen that escape [that is, escape from attacks by submarines] there are about 70 per cent. or 75 per cent., and of unarmed merchantmen 24 per cent."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st February, 1917; cols. 1364–5, Vol. 90.]
Therefore, in the last war the percentage of armed merchantmen that escaped from submarine attacks was three times as great as the percentage of unarmed merchantmen that escaped. This illustrates how urgent it is that our merchantmen, in these circumstances, should get their full armament.

Mr. Churchill: Nearly 2,000 merchant ships are armed.

Mr. Alexander: By cannon or by machine gun?

Mr. Churchill: By cannon.

Mr. Alexander: That is encouraging when compared with the experience in the last war, for the statement I have just quoted was made 2½ years after the

beginning of the war. What I ask is that, in view of the intense nature of the menace, the merchant ships should be armed as speedily as possible. Another question that concerns us in regard to the general building on the naval side is whether we are making full use of the dockyard facilities. Certainly, there must be, necessarily, a heavy amount of re pairs to be done, but there must also be a great deal of maintenance to be done. I think we lose severely in this war by the removal of the services which we got from the Irish bases that were formerly available to us. It would be encouraging to some of us if we could feel that at least our criticisms during the last few years of the Board of Admiralty's policy had resulted in the reopening and use of Pembroke. When compared with the East Coast ports, Pembroke would be valuable for services in connection with light flotillas in the anti-submarine campaign at the Western approaches. Something ought to be done in that matter without any further delay. I should like now to say a few words about mercantile building, superintendence over which the First Lord has added to his numerous other duties. It is quite right that he should try to get the balance required between the naval tonnage to be built and the merchant tonnage to be built in replacement. There are many people in the country who are anxious on this subject at the present time. The losses have not been given to us in detail to-day by the First Lord, and I do not blame him—

Mr. Churchill: I did give them.

Mr. Alexander: The right hon. Gentleman has given us no other figure of losses of ships except to say what has been the net loss of British tonnage. That is by no means the full story of the mercantile position which we have to face. There is a number of ways in which we can deal with the falling away in this tonnage position. We can purchase neutral tonnage. We can charter neutral tonnage, not merely for single voyages but for long periods. I have not heard of any sensational work by the Ministry of Shipping in purchasing neutral tonnage. I hope they will purchase some. I have not heard anything very sensational in the way of long-period chartering of large blocks of tonnage. I hope that we may get some information on that another day, but in


the matter of building, I feel that we are up against an urgent and vital problem.
The First Lord knows the experience of the last war. In that war, we lost, in British, Allied and neutral merchant and fishing vessels, 5,400 ships, and a gross tonnage of over 11,000,000 by submarines alone, to which must be added the additional losses by mine. We pray that our experience in this war will not be as grave in numbers or volume. I agree with the spirit of the First Lord, in his forward view of the submarine campaign, that we must be ready. Therefore, in our battle for the security of our people, we must build and prepare now on the mercantile side. Last night, I looked up the figures of launchings of mercantile tonnage during the last war. In 1914—for only five months of which we were at war—the figure of launchings was 1,684,000 tons. In the first full year of war, 1915, the figure dropped to 657,000 tons. In 1916, just as the submarine campaign was mounting up, the figure dropped to 608,000 tons. But in 1917, when we had the full burden of the anti-submarine campaign, we raised our tonnage output to 1,168,000, and in 1918 we raised it to 1,348,000 tons.
The First Lord has rightly taken credit for dealing with the immediate naval menace of a campaign which in the early days was more in the style of the campaign against us in the last war than we might have expected. Great losses have been incurred. We speak of the tonnage of the ships that have been sunk, but there are the losses, we know, in respect of ships that are completely out of action—through beachings, collisions, or ordinary founderings. All those have to be included in the calculation. It seems to me that we ought to be making a very earnest effort to deal with this position. I hope that it will be possible for the Parliamentary Secretary to give us, consistent with the public interest, some idea as to what the programme is to be. But as we look at the problem as a whole and think also of the question of the guns for the ships, gun crews, and the actual manning of the ships, it may well be—and I am sure the First Lord will not object to my saying this—that in the near future the Opposition may have to ask for a special day, perhaps on the Ministry of Shipping Vote, to deal with these matters which are so much in our minds.
We face great dangers and anticipate increasing tribulations, but I believe this nation is determined itself to strive for the great objectives of ending the continuous aggression and threat to liberty and peace which has grown up in Europe during the last seven years, and for the creation of the conditions of permanent peace and justice under the rule of law. I believe that this nation, with its Ally, has the good will of the great majority of neutral peoples, a good will which I hope will be maintained, although I must say that we hold the profound conviction that there is no secure future for any one of those neutral peoples unless the cause to which we have given our hearts and hands is successful. We would not and ought not to continue in this state of exhausting belligerency or to risk the lives of our men and relatives for one moment longer than is necessary to secure the path to those great objectives, but until the cruel, relentless, persecuting aggression is withdrawn, and proved to be withdrawn by deeds, or until that aggression is defeated, and defeated finally, we must pursue our task with the courage and tenacity which are so exemplified by the example and service of the Royal Navy, whose work and achievements we acclaim and acknowledge with gratitude, and to whose leadership we wish wisdom, judgment, un-weariness and success.

5.15 p.m.

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes: I am sure that everybody who listened to the speech of my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty or who reads it to-morrow will feel confident that the Navy is in sure and resolute hands. It happens that nearly all the Sea Lords who are on the Board of Admiralty to-day joined the Admiralty shortly before the war broke out, and they cannot be held responsible for the shortcomings in our preparation for war which were apparent to those of us who had experience of the last war, and, indeed, to any intelligent man in the street. However, the Board of Admiralty, as it exists to-day, has lost no time in making good deficiencies and in tackling new problems. By the disposition of the fleets and the ready acceptance of great responsibilities, the Admiralty have given the officers and men of the Fleet opportunities of adding glorious pages to the annals and history of the British Navy. I am sure that my


hon. Friends in every part of the House will not grudge me the intense pride which I feel to-day in the younger generation of the Service, in which I spent so much of my life.
The First Lord gave us a brilliant survey of what the Navy means in the struggle which is before us. I do not think that after his explanation of the value of the battleship and of what the capital fleet means in this great organisation, called the British Navy, it will ever be questioned that the Admiralty were wise in the past few years in insisting on building a capital fleet, ready to meet the capital ships which all other maritime nations including Germany are building as fast as they possibly can. I would like to say too how much I appreciate all that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander) has said in the great tribute which he paid to the officers and men of my service. I appreciate also the helpful tone of the right hon. Gentleman's speech to-day, and may I say that it has been very agreeable for the last two years to find the right hon. Gentleman fighting on the same side with us and striving to help the Government of the day to provide the Navy which the country needs.
I ventured to come into the House of Commons six years ago to fight for the restoration of sea power, which was at that time at a rather low ebb, and to fight for all those things which I considered necessary for the welfare of the officers and men of the Fleet. I knew from my experience in the last war and when I was in command of the principal Fleet during many peace-time exercises that air power had become of ever-increasing importance in the exercise of sea power, and I have been striving during all those years to regain for the Admiralty the right to develop naval aviation; to get aircraft designed which would carry out the functions required by the Navy in war, to train the necessary personnel and to operate those aircraft in war-time. In fact, my object was to regain for the Admiralty the control, which it held all through the last war, over all aircraft operating with and against ships.
We have now been six months at war and the Navy still lacks any control over a number of aircraft which carry out purely naval functions, an arrangement which has been attended with disturbing

and sometimes dangerous results. In those circumstances, I feel impelled, once again, to call attention to this matter which is of vital importance for the successful conduct of the war. I do so even at the risk of incurring the displeasure of my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty who has, in my opinion, tolerated the existing system which he inherited all too long—no doubt in the hope of coming to some sort of working arrangement with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air. I would like to quote to the House a letter which the late Lord Beatty wrote to me when I was Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, referring to the working of the dual control of the Fleet Air Arm which was imposed upon the Admiralty by Lord Baldwin's Government in 1923. Lord Beatty wrote:
This is no inter-service quarrel capable of compromise but a serious cause of reduced efficiency which time cannot correct as it is due to a fundamental error in principle which no compromise can possibly bridge over.
Those are the words of a great sea officer who bore the heaviest responsibilities in the last war and who had the vision to see what was likely to happen in the next war. Nevertheless, all the efforts of the Admiralty to regain control of their air service have been met by a long series of compromises. There can be nothing more important in the conduct of sea war at the moment than the security of British and neutral shipping, and the fishing fleets which operate in the North Sea, and it simply is not fair to leave the Navy under the stigma of having failed to give these vessels the protection which it is the Navy's responsibility to provide, and yet the Navy have no control whatever over the nature of the aircraft employed, the strength of the squadrons, the training of the personnel, or even the operation of aircraft on which the Admiralty have to rely for information about enemy ships which venture into the North Sea and for reconnaissance reports on which the conduct of Fleet operations may depend. Neither have they any control over the aircraft which should be in a position to deliver attacks on enemy ships at sea immediately they are located; nor over the fighter aircraft which should be available at a moment's notice to attack the enemy aircraft which prey on our unprotected trading and fishing vessels


almost within sight of our shores. This is no reflection on the splendid young men who, since the war started, have been carrying out the patrols of the Coastal Command. It is not their fault that the Air Ministry has failed to equip them with the adequate number of aircraft of the type necessary to give the Navy the aerial co-operation which it has the right to expect.
The functions which I have mentioned are all naval functions. One is often asked why the Fleet Air Arm, over which the Admiralty have complete control, cannot carry out these functions and provide all the aircraft which the Navy needs to fulfil its responsibilities. It is not generally understood that the decision made by the Government in July, 1937, only gave the Navy control over aircraft which were actually carried in ships. These small aircraft which have to fold their wings in order to get into their floating aerodromes and which fly on and off very small spaces cannot possibly compete in combat with the powerful great shore-based aircraft which Germany possesses and which can fly wherever they like from the Heligoland Bight to the Shetlands, or with the fighters possessed by the enemy which can operate at considerable distances out to sea. When I am asked, then, what the Fleet Air Arm is doing, all I can say is that it is quietly doing its job without talking about it, and in fact is doing the same things as the splendid young men of the Coastal Command have been doing throughout the war, with this difference, that they are operating from floating aerodromes on storm-swept seas out in the ocean spaces.
Without giving anything away—indeed, the fact has been published to the world—I may say that, shortly before the "Graf Spee" was no gallantly fought to destruction by three light cruisers, the "Ark Royal"—which the enemy claimed to have destroyed in the North Sea during the early days of the war—was at cape Town. A few days later, shortly after the "Graf Spee" fight, the "Ark Royal" was at Rio de Janeiro. It is easy to deduce or to opine, if that is the right word, that the "Ark Royal" and the "Renown" were not very far from the "Graf Spee." I would not deprive those three gallant little cruisers of the credit for that splendid action. I would not deprive the Navy of that glorious

story, but the next time a raider ventures out I hope it will be found by one of our aircraft carriers, attacked by the aircraft carriers' torpedo planes, and destroyed by the accompanying ships. That is what the Fleet Air Arm is for. It happens that Germany has no sea-going fleet at present, but a sufficient force of aircraft carriers must be kept in being to deal with enemy ships which venture into the ocean spaces on raiding expeditions such as that of the "Graf Spee." Each aircraft carrier, in addition to its reconnaissance planes, carries fighter planes to fight the sea-borne aircraft of the enemy and it also carries torpedo planes to attack the enemy ships. It is, as I say, essential therefore that a force of aircraft carriers should be kept in being.
In the meantime, I know there are scores of splendid young naval pilots who have not had an opportunity of getting contact with the enemy and who are spoiling to be allowed to fly in shore base aircraft in order to attack the enemy aircraft which operate against our merchant ships and to attack the enemy's ships whenever they put to sea. That brings me to my point. It is no use criticising unless one can make suggestions. The Navy cannot escape responsibility for protecting shipping at sea, by arming all ships with defensive armament and machine guns. The First Lord told us that this was being done. I suggest that a Naval Air Service should be formed without further delay, first, by placing the Coastal Command under the direct control of the Admiralty and equipping it with an adequate number of machines, so that it can continue to carry out the splendid work which it is doing now more effectively. I suggest, too, that the Coastal Command should be strengthened by a certain number of fighters and powerful aircraft equipped with offensive weapons to help it to co-operate most effectively with the Navy in sea operations. I would suggest, too, that all the naval air pilots that can be spared from the Fleet Air Arm should be equipped with machines the Admiralty consider necessarry to carry out offensive operations against enemy ships and aircraft coming within their radius of action.
When I spoke last in this House on this subject, in March, 1937, we hoped that an unbiased committee would consider this question, consisting of men who had neither political nor Service considera-


tions to influence them; but although the House knew of the composition of the committee, it was shut down. I have pleaded, and I have warned the Government, that there could only be one end to this age-old controversy—that the Admiralty must control all the aircraft the Navy needs to fulfil its responsibilities. I stated, too, that, if war came before the Navy possessed a Naval Air Service, the men of the Fleet would pay with their lives for the shortcomings of the Government in failing to provide what the Admiralty should have insisted upon at the time, and for years past. It cannot be denied to-day that men have paid with their lives—fishermen, lightship keepers and merchant seamen—because the Government failed to provide the Navy with the air service which those best qualified to judge considered it should have.

5.32 p.m.

Mr. Horabin: I find myself in a most unusual position this afternoon, because I cannot attack, but can only praise, although, of course, there may be some sort of sting in the tail of my speech. I should like to pay my tribute to the inspiring efforts of the Navy under the energetic and clear-sighted leadership of the First Lord of the Admiralty. We all feel that the expansion of the Navy is being pushed forward with full appreciation of the magnitude and the urgency of its task. If our war effort in other directions was as adequate, we should have no grounds for disquiet or criticism of the Government. To me it is significant that the Admiralty deal with any correspondence I may have with them promptly, and without any evasion of the point at issue in a tenth of the time of many other Government Departments which have very much less to do with the enemy. It shows that the Admiralty have a clearly defined policy and an energetic administration. One has confidence in the determination of the Fleet's First Lord to allow nothing to stand in the way in that part of our war effort for which he is responsible.
I welcome the fact that he is now responsible for merchant shipbuilding. In my view, our greatest danger in the months ahead is a shortage of food. Hitler has made no secret of his intention to try and win this war by a ruthless

attempt to starve us out. He will, I believe, use every available means to achieve this end, concentrated air attacks upon our ports and shipping, submarines and magnetic mines. While, of course, the spirit of the British people can never be quelled, their strength can be destroyed by starvation. Starvation might possibly mean a humiliating surrender. This places a very heavy responsibility on the First Lord both to protect our mercantile shipping from losses and to see that enough new tonnage is coming forward to make good any possible losses. During the last six months our merchant seamen have played their part by heroic persistence in their duty whatever the odds against them. They will carry on with the same grim determination in the difficult months ahead. But, that is not enough. They must have the ships in which to sail. By how much would their task have been lightened had steps been taken to make full use of our capacity for the production of food at home. Instead, their task is heavier to-day because we have 2,000,000 less acres under cultivation compared with 1914 and 5,000,000 more mouths to feed. We must build more, and still more, merchant ships, because, it has been decided, as the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) told us the other day, to dig for victory with a pair of Treasury scissors, and to scratch at our millions of derelict acres of land with a garden trowel. Side by side with this neglect of agriculture is the decline in the deadweight tonnage of shipping available for importation of food and raw materials to this country. It is 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 tons less than in 1914. Besides—and I know that the First Lord of the Admiralty has this in mind—it is not enough to plan our merchant shipbuilding merely to replace current losses. Losses may increase in the future, and past neglect must also be made up. Already these losses amount to somewhere about 1,300,000 tons a year. The "Economist" considers it would be a good effort on our part if we built 1,500,000 tons of merchant shipping during the current year.
To me, it is a scathing commentary on Government policy that in the face of German re-armament not only was the home production of food not accelerated, not only was the tonnage of shipping, suitable for carrying cargoes in time of


war, allowed to decline, but a policy of deliberately destroying a large part of our shipbuilding capacity, was also pursued. I am told that National Shipbuilders' Security, Limited, deliberately destroyed a productive capacity of about 1,350,000 tons. National Shipbuilders Security! Shipbuilders Security; National Insecurity. Skilled Labour allowed to rot and disperse, and we know the effect of that from what the First Lord of the Admiralty has said this afternoon. 2,000,000 acres less for food at home, 6,000,000 tons deadweight of shipping less to bring food from overseas; 1,300,000 tons of shipbuilding capacity deliberately destroyed. Surely, this is to gamble with the future of the British people. There has been lack of vision and failure to prepare, and now the man who prophesied in the wilderness is called upon to save us from disaster he warned us against in those fateful wasted years. I am confident of one thing, that his courage, drive, and tenacity will not be unequal to the task which lies before him.

5.40 p.m.

Major Neven-Spence: The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Horabin) referred to the losses, and other hon. Members have referred to the same thing. The right hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) suggested that the way in which these losses might be made good was by the purchase and charter of neutral tonnage and the building of ships. He omitted, however, to mention one method of minimising these losses which is, I think, of extreme importance, and that is by concentrating every possible effort on salvaging damaged ships. Some losses are inevitable, but even in peace-time we take every step to salvage ships coming to grief through storm, collision, fire, or accident. What are we doing at the present time to salvage ships not irretrievably damaged? I put down a Question about this some time ago; the answer was not altogether evasive, and was in the politest terms, but it suggested that I might teach my grandmother to suck eggs.
If it is necessary to make an effort to salvage ships in peace-time, does it not become 10 times more necessary to make that effort in war, when losing so many ships by enemy action? It is strange to reflect that while we prided ourselves on being the greatest maritime nation in the world, even in peace-time

we were relatively the worst equipped for conducting salvage operations at sea. I ask hon. Members to go back to 1927, when we had to send to Orkney for a ship capable of dealing with the "Celtic" at Queenstown. Again and again we have had to borrow foreign salvage ships to carry on operations around our shores. Foreign tugs were constantly stationed at Falmouth. Before the war there were three foreign salvage tugs at Queenstown all the year round, capable of remaining at sea for three weeks on end, and conducting salvage operations in mid-Atlantic. When we wanted to send the great floating dock to Singapore, we had to hire a Dutch tug for the purpose. It is not surprising, therefore, that when war broke out we were not properly equipped for salvage work. We have many small companies with inadequate capital and inadequate equipment and often without experience of certain types of work. I ask whether, at the present moment, there is anywhere on the East Coast a single salvage ship capable of proceeding to sea for a long period. Of all the small salvage companies on the East Coast, has any one of them a 10-inch hemp hawser, or a seven-inch wire hawser? The only place I know where these can be obtained is in Orkney.
Let us look at some of these salvage companies round the coasts. At Aberdeen there is a two penny-halfpenny tug, appropriately called the "Iron Axe," used exclusively by Lloyds for salvaging fishing vessels. At Leith there are three tugs not properly equipped for real salvage work, and with no divers available except dock divers. When we get down to the Tyne, we find two small tugs. The Humber is rather better equipped; I do not know how many tugs there are, but in any case they are not sea-going tugs. The position in the Thames is much the same. On the West coast there is the Liverpool company, which is one of the best equipped salvage companies in the country; but look at the evidence that came to light in the course of the "Thetis" inquiry. A veil has been drawn over that event; otherwise there might have been a lot more said about it. What was revealed there was lack of proper organisation for carrying out the salvage. The gear was in existence, but the oxy-acetylene plant was not transported in the first ship to where it was wanted, and some essential gear was not


in working order. Also the divers were not sufficiently experienced for the work they had to do.
If that is the state of affairs in one of our better salvage companies, what are we to expect from the small and indifferent companies round the coast? There is only one exception to what I have been saying, and that is the salvage company which has been at work for many years in Orkney—formerly Cox and Danks, and now Metal Industries, Limited. There is no doubt that Mr. MacKenzie, the manager, is a salvage king. He and Commander Hughes and others working under him have carried out successfully one of the greatest salvage feats ever attempted. They are highly equipped for the particular job they are carrying out. But again, they are not equipped for work at any great distance from the shore. They have two very good salvage ships, the "Metinda" and the "Bertha," and a tug which is so powerful that when she went to pull a steamer off the rocks near my home she pulled the top of the steamer right off the bottom. These vessels are specialised for the particular jobs they have to do, and in consequence the available space which a sea-going salvage ship needs for the accommodation of the crew and bunkers is taken up with gear. The "Bertha" and "Metinda," both of which ships I know well, left Orkney at or shortly after the outbreak of war to refit. Where are they now? They went away to have some of the compressors taken out in order to give extra space for the crew and extra bunker space and to have oxy-acetylene apparatus put on board, and, in fact, to be fitted properly as sea-going salvage ships. And here we are now in the sixth month of the war, and these ships are not ready yet. I want to know why they are not ready and whose fault it is. This matter needs looking into.
The other day in London I ran into the officer to whom I referred, Commander Hughes. That officer has been in charge of the salvage operations under Mr. Mackenzie at Scapa Flow continuously for seven years, and there is probably no more experienced salvage officer in the country. Ever since the outbreak of the war, however, he has been on the beach. That can only mean that we are not carrying out as much salvage

as we were before the war. Is there any wonder that wherever one goes along the East Coast the same question comes up every time: Why are we not salvaging more ships? An hon. Member above the Gangway approached me the other day and asked about the state of affairs along the Sunderland coast. I feel that much more might be done than is being done. There is overwhelming evidence that thousands of tons of shipping that could have been salved have not been salved, and much will be irretrievably lost if the job is not soon tackled. Salvage is a very critical operation. Every minute may count. If a ship goes ashore on a rising tide it may be possible to salvage her at once. If she goes ashore when the spring tides are making, the case may not be hopeless. The point is that every second counts. A change of the weather may wreck the most promising chance.
I appreciate that there are many ships which it is difficult to salve in war-time. No one expects an attempt to be made to salvage a ship which has been blown up by a magnetic mine and had her back broken, but there are other ships which have been attacked by machine guns and abandoned by the crews and afterwards sunk by our own destroyers. That is the type of ship which can often be salved. One has seen reports recently about ships of which the salvage has been attempted, but when they were towed in they capsized. One cannot be dogmatic about such cases without knowing the circumstances, but they rouse the suspicion that properly qualified people were not tackling the jobs. Only yesterday I read in one of my local papers an account of the salvaging of a burning grain ship in Orkney. No attempt had been made to deal with the ship until a retired sea captain asked whether he could have a try. He had no tackle or gear, although he had had some previous experience, and he salvaged the ship successfully. Such a job should not be left to an individual situated as he was. There should have been some better organisation to deal with it.
The whole position of salvage shows a woeful lack of foresight at the Admiralty. They must have been aware for years of the lamentable lack of adequate salvage apparatus round our coasts. If they were not aware of it, they should have had their eyes opened at the time of the "Thetis"


tragedy. Yet six months after the outbreak of war we still have no sea-going salvage ships. It is possible that the Admiralty have plans, but nothing will make me alter my opinion that they have been too long in getting the plans into action. I hope they have been worked out now and that we shall see something of them in the near future. I should like to see at the stations I have mentioned on the East Coast at least one first-class sea-going salvage ship with complete equipment—compressors for diving, oxy-acetylene apparatus, salvage pumps, general repair outfit, wireless apparatus, and a couple of experienced divers. We have the necessary divers in this country at Scapa Flow. We want the type of men who are accustomed not merely to going down great depths, but to doing a job of work when they get there. I do not think the salvage companies could do the work themselves because they have not the capital or the amount of experience. The work must be co-ordinated and all the stations properly equipped. Whatever the future arrangements are, I hope the Admiralty will see that it is their policy to provide these companies with the capital and equipment they have not got—and at the same time see they do not get away with too much of the swag.

5.55 p.m.

Mr. McLean Watson: I have a considerable amount of sympathy with the hon. and gallant Member for Orkney and Shetland (Major Neven-Spence), who has been voicing a great grievance in Scotland, for Scotland has a great interest in the question of salvaging vessels. At the end of the last war the German Fleet found a grave in Scapa Flow. In the time that has elapsed the greater part of that fleet has been salvaged and broken up for scrap. I am pleased to have the opportunity of following the hon. and gallant Member for Orkney and Shetland, because these German battleships were brought through the North Sea to a dockyard in my constituency. I question whether there is any dockyard in the country to which the German hulks could have been brought. These battleships were brought to Rosyth bottom upwards, and I question whether there is another dockyard in the country that could have taken them in that state. Yet this is the dockyard which the Admiralty reduced to

a care-and-maintenance basis in 1925. It was kept in that condition until shortly before the present war broke out. I am pleased the Admiralty recognised that there is a need for Rosyth, and I hope that the daft policy that was pursued in the past with regard to it will not be followed in future and that now that they are getting the yard back to something like its original condition it will be kept so long as we require dockyards.
It is lamentable to think that while dockyards in the South of England, which cannot compare with Rosyth, were being kept in full working order, Rosyth was reduced to a care-and-maintenance basis. It was then the newest dockyard in the country. There is no difficulty in docking in it the largest ship in the Fleet. Shortly before it was reduced, the "Hood" was docked there in a dense fog without a scratch. Rosyth has now been reopened, but it has not done as much for the Navy as it could have done if it had been kept in proper condition. The Admiralty have had to re-establish the yard and obtain new labour because the war was upon us before it could be developed to any extent. However, it has again been placed on the map, and I hope it will be kept on the map by the Admiralty. The First Lord interested the whole House with his graphic description of how the war had developed, his account of the losses we had sustained, and his expectations and hopes for the future. We were all interested in that speech, and I dare say that so long as the Government can find as good a cause as they have for the present war they will get support from this side of the House for the Navy, for the Army and for the Air Force.
I do not know how the First Lord or the powers-that-be generally managed to cover up the accident to the "Nelson" for so long. They knew about it weeks ago, but, as the First Lord said, it was only last week-end that it was discovered in Germany that the "Nelson" had met with an accident. Had the Germans been as well informed as they pretend to be, we should have had "Lord Haw-Haw" on the job weeks ago. It is a good thing they do not know everything which they might know concerning our affairs in this country. I hope they will get no information that will be of any use to them in any shape or form. The information


which they ought to get is some of that which the First Lord gave us this afternoon; that while our losses have been serious—not so far as capital ships are concerned; the smaller ships have suffered—we have his assurance that the ships lost will be replaced in a very short time, and that some of the ships damaged in the course of the war will again be in active service before long. That gives us the assurance that so far as the Navy is concerned we have no need to be afraid or to be ashamed.
I have a considerable amount of sympathy with the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for North Portsmouth (Sir R. Keyes). He raised a matter which is of very considerable importance. We have had many discussions in this House about whether the Air Force should be entirely under the control of the Air Ministry or whether we should have this compromise system of having part of it under the Air Ministry and part of it under the Admiralty. I have great sympathy with the point of view which the hon. and gallant Member expressed. I have sympathy with him for this reason, that in the one serious attack made on this country by the German air force the sufferers were men belonging to the Navy. That was the occasion when the Germans tried to get through to Rosyth Dockyard. They created a considerable amount of havoc that afternoon, and it is possible that if we had had an air fleet wholly under the control of the Admiralty there might have been more co-operation between that section of the Air Force and the Navy than was in existence that afternoon.
The first air raid made on this country was made on Rosyth, and, as I have said, the men who met their death were men who were on His Majesty's ships. It was a most unfortunate business, and it makes many of us wonder whether the advocates of the whole of the Air Force being under the control of the Air Ministry are justified in that claim, or whether we should not, as the hon. and gallant Member for North Portsmouth advocated this afternoon, give the Admiralty much greater power in building up an air force to co-operate with the Fleet than has been permitted to them so far. It is true that in addition to the floating aerodromes to which he referred there are one or two shore establishments

which are under the control of the Admiralty, but I believe that it would be to the advantage of this country if the Admiralty had a much greater and a more efficient air force than they are now permitted to have.
I know that many hon. Members are anxious to take part in this Debate, and I merely wish to express my appreciation of the speech we had this afternoon from the First Lord, and to renew the hope that the mistake which was made in 1925 with regard to the dockyard in my constituency will not be repeated. I hope that Rosyth will be made and kept as a first-class naval dockyard; that the Admiralty will make up their minds once and for all that so long as we require a Navy, Rosyth shall be one of the dockyards which is to serve its needs. In the past the Admiralty have not played the game with Scotland in that respect. They may have played the game with the Clyde, where many of our first-class battleships have been built, but the Clyde is not the whole of Scotland, and I am not sure that it is the best part of Scotland. We who live on the East Coast are as keenly interested in the Navy as any one in the West can be, and we want to see that dockyard made into and kept as one of our first-class dockyards.

6.8 p.m.

Commander Sir Archibald South by: During the last war a great American who was at that time United States Ambassador to this country wrote this:
So far as ensuring peace is concerned, the biggest factor in the world in the British Fleet.
A Member of this Honourable House in 1751 uttered the immortal truth that
a Sea Power should make war by sea.
I do not always see eye to eye with the First Lord of the Admiralty, but I will "hand it to him" for knowing how to make war by sea, for organising the naval resources of this country, for stimulating the naval forces of this country, and for catching the attention of the public and heartening the nation in the speeches he makes about our naval forces. He appreciates the dictum of Cardinal Richelieu that
without sea-power one can neither profit from peace nor sustain war.
We listened with great interest to the account which the right hon. Gentleman gave when presenting the Estimates,


Estimates for an unspecified number of men, an unspecified number of ships and an unspecified amount of money, none of which, this country or this House will grudge to the right hon. Gentleman's Department for the better prosecution of the war, realising that fundamentally and in the end it is the sea-power of this country which will be the deciding factor in this or in any war in which this country is engaged. I was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman's tribute to the officers and men of the Royal Navy. There was no one who was not thrilled by the exploits of those three magnificently-handled ships in the action against the "Graf Spee." Their magnificent handling was also supported by very good fortune, as those who have expert knowledge realise. Indeed, there was a considerable amount of good fortune in that action, on our side mercifully. We were thrilled, also, when we found the men who had been concerned in that action amongst us in the City of London, but as I read the accounts of the wonderful entertainment given to them by the city, and the amazing reception they met with from the people, my thoughts turned to the officers and men of the flotillas in the North Sea who for week after week and month after month have endured what nobody who has not experienced the North Sea in such weather as we have had recently, can really appreciate.

Mr. Benjamin Smith: Surely that does not detract from the exploits of the other men?

Sir A. South by: No, I would not for a moment have it said that I think that:
This ought ye to have done, and not have left the other undone.
Only I feel that it should be on record that the work which is being done day by day by the men in the destroyers merits not only our appreciation but our whole-hearted gratitude. As long ago as 1907 there was a Hague Convention which laid down certain rules for the conduct of war. The State Department of the United States at that time expressed forebodings that belligerents might, in the heat of a war and for their own advantage, break their word although they had subscribed to the Convention. Both in the last war and in this war we have seen those forebodings fulfilled by Germany's betrayal after

betrayal of the undertakings she had entered into. To any seamen the last, the most beastly and most disgusting of all her actions was the bombing and the machine-gunning of lightships. It can only be described as on a par with shooting a hospital nurse in the back. It has been left for German airmen to do that, just as it has been left for Germany to make the name "submarine" stink in the nostrils of the world.
All through history every effort has been made in times of peace to reduce and to hamstring the sea power of this country. We have had to wage a continuous fight to preserve for ourselves that liberty of action at sea which makes it possible for us to use that last inexorable triumphant weapon of the blockade. Although Germany has broken every rule of decency in the conduct of the war at sea, we should remind ourselves that it is possible to make submarine warfare and to do it humanely and decently. I do not know how many Members have had either the time or the inclination to read the naval history of the last war, but I would crave their indulgence to quote two or three passages from it. Here is one concerning the work of our submarines in the Sea of Marmora:
This ended the work of the British submarines in the Sea. of Marmora. They had sunk two battleships of the Turkish Navy, one destroyer, five gunboats, nine transports, more than 30 steamers, seven ammunition store ships and 188 sailing vessels.
In every case regard was paid to the humanities. The crews were provided for, often at great risk to ourselves, and the greatest consideration was shown, a fact to which the Turks themselves paid tribute to our commanding officers.
Recently I have had enforced leisure in which to study the speeches and Debates of the past. In considering Germany's tremendous fury and reaction to the "Altmark" incident one might remember what happened to one of our submarines, E 13, in the last war. E 13, when coming back from the Baltic, went aground on 18th August, 1915, between Malmo and Copenhagen, on Danish territorial soil. She had, under international law, 24 hours in which she could either repair herself and get off or be interned. While she was lying there two German destroyers came and, in spite of the presence of a Danish torpedo vessel, they fired a torpedo at E 13 which exploded


on the Danish rocks under the ship's bottom. Not content with that they opened fire upon this defenceless ship which was lying on a neutral shore, under what protection a neutral man-of-war could give to it. They fired some 400 rounds of four-inch projectiles into this ship. The crew escaped, some over the rocks. Some took to the water and a large number of them were deliberately machine-gunned by the German destroyer as they were swimming until the Danish sailors intervened and saved the lives of the remainder. It passes my comprehension and, I am sure, that of any other hon. Member in this House how any country or Government can be so hypercritical, having that record behind them, as to complain of what we did in saving our men from the "Altmark."
My right hon. Friend referred—I took great note of what he said—to the effects of our economic blockade. There we have the one weapon among other weapons which in the end will prove victorious in the struggle in which we are now engaged. The alternative to a blockade as one great writer, Admiral Mahon, who is an expert on the subject, has said, is the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of money. The last war was prolonged because in the beginning we did not exert our full power of economic warfare and blockade. I hope that we shall not make the same mistake in this war. We very nearly subscribed to the Declaration of London, pressed to do so over and over again by politicians and statesmen in this country, but mercifully we did not. Under it we should have started the war with copper, rubber, cotton and even aeroplanes not contraband. Those who took part in the last war and were in service on the North Sea saw cargo after cargo of potential munitions of war including raw materials passing practically unhindered into Germany. When a blockade was exercised the flood of raw materials through the neutrals enabled Germany to keep the war on. In the interests of humanity it is necessary for us to exercise to the fullest possible extent the power of blockade which sea power gives to us.
When the United States have been at war they have always subscribed to our rules of sea warfare. When they have been at peace they have not. Certainly on occasions they have had reservations.

In the last war when they came in they went much further than we were prepared to go in applying blockade. I am sure that the feeling in the United States is one of great sympathy with the Allies and of great understanding of the difficulties—because of their experiences in the last war—which any sea power must have when it is fighting a war of this importance. Therefore, I have no fear about public opinion in the United States of America. Causes of friction will arise, but in the main the United States understand our difficulties in the application of sea power and provided we carry out our duties and obligations with tact and consideration I believe we shall have nothing but support from them.
Mr. Walter Hines Page, perhaps one of the greatest Ambassadors the United States have ever sent to this country, had the fullest understanding of us and of our difficulties. At the time when the Declaration of London was being discussed before the last war he was pressed four times by his Government to exercise pressure upon this country to subscribe to a declaration which would have hamstrung us completely if it had been finally ratified before the war began.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: That Declaration was not law.

Sir A. South by: No, it was not law. As I said, had it been subscribed to completely it would have hamstrung us. Mr. Page said this:
If Lansing (then Secretary of State in the United States) again brings up the Declaration of London after four flat and reasonable rejections I shall resign. I will not be the instrument of a perfectly gratuitous and ineffective insult to this patient and fair and friendly Government, who, in my time, have done us many kindnesses and never an injury, and who sincerely try now to meet our wishes.
He went on at the same time to say:
The case is plain enough to me. England is going to keep war materials out of Germany so far as she can. We would do it in her place. Germany would do it. Any nation would do it.
Then he said:
If England be left alone she will do it in a way to give us the very least annoyance possible.
He pointed out that we had not then confiscated a single American cargo even of unconditional contraband. I believe that in the hands of my right hon. Friend


the First Lord of the Admiralty, the prosecution of economic warfare is safe. I said just now—although we have not always been able to see eye to eye—that I hand it to him for the prosecution of the war at sea. I believe that with his drive he is the person who will see to it that we do not lose the tremendous advantage that we possess of being able to apply inexorable pressure upon the German people. This is more difficult now because of the circumstances of the grouping of the Powers, but in the end the sea power that we can exercise will be the deciding factor.
I listened to the right hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander), whose friendliness and affection for the Navy I as a naval officer would like to acknowledge. He has always been dear to the heart of the Navy. Knowing his interest in the Service and his knowledge of the conditions in the Navy, I could not help casting my mind back to the time when he was First Lord of the Admiralty and when some of us—I have no desire to say "I told you so"—protested against the London Naval Treaty which is at the bottom of half our troubles of unprepared-ness at the present time. He had—I do not know with what pressure behind him—to defend that Treaty at that Box and he did ably defend it, while I opposed it from the other side of the House. That was a wicked abrogation of British sea power, from the effects of which we shall have to suffer until after the expenditure of much money we shall with blood and tears have made up the deficiencies of the Navy which ought never to have been allowed to take place.

Mr. Alexander: I take no exception to what the hon. and gallant Member is saying, but I would simply say that if he has ever known what it is to find himself fighting a rearguard action against the Treasury and to come out of it with a programme of replacement of cruisers which prevented the Fleet rusting out from the bottom he will perhaps be a little more generous in his criticism.

Sir A. Southby: As I have already said, I have recently had enforced leisure in which to read the speeches that have been made in this House and the arguments brought forward. I realised the difficulties at that time against which the right hon. Gentleman was suffering.

Anybody can make mistakes; it is by the mistakes of the past that we can profit, but let us never make that mistake again. The figure of 91,000 tons was the limit for cruiser replacement. That figure was agreed to even before the nations had come together in London to have their conference. It had been decided upon before there was any discussion with the other nations, and that was the trouble. It was cut and dried before they came here. The cruiser replacement programme, which was utterly inadequate, landed us at the beginning of this war in a position of dangerous cruiser shortage. Had we remained a strong, well-armed sea Power the course of history might have been different, although it is perhaps unprofitable to dwell on that matter now. We should have been able to withstand any threat of aggression and been able to face not only the West but the East, in which case the history of Europe might very well have been something different from what it has been.
We all hated to hear of the insults which were levelled at our nationals a few months ago by the Japanese in China. Does any hon. Member not realise that had we been able to maintain sufficient naval power in the Far East we might not have had to put up with them? A great mistake was made in the past also by the non-continuation of work on the Singapore naval base. I wonder what the hon. Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon) thinks now. At that time he bitterly opposed the continuation of that work on the Singapore base, not, it is true, when he was in office, but before. If only that base had been completed the history of the world might have been very different.
I beg hon. Members to realise that whatever difficulties there may be in regard to neutrals it is not possible to allow indefinitely the use of neutral waters to a belligerent to whom we are opposed, in a way which enables them to import for themselves raw materials and munitions. Nobody has ever suggested that under international law a belligerent can make use of the whole 800 miles of Norwegian territorial waters to which the First Lord referred in his speech. It is no good our putting out our prodigious effort, expending our money and what is much more important spending our manpower and our young man-power in this


war, if it is to be prolonged because we will not face the fact that, if we are to win the war, we have to stop Germany getting munitions and anything else. I listened at Question Time to the questions put to the Minister for Economic Warfare and to the replies which he gave and I realise the difficulties under which that Department must be suffering at the present time. In the end as in the last war we shall have to ration the neutral countries in order to try to stop the re-importation from them of goods which they bring in from abroad and pass on to Germany.
The naval conduct of the war up to date—and I say it with feeling in regard to the Service to which I long had the honour to belong—has added fresh lustre to the naval laurels of this country and is something of which this House and the country may be proud. I believe the country realises the debt it owes to the British Navy and that there is no sacrifice which it will not make in order that the British Navy may be maintained both in man-power and materials. I am grateful to the First Lord of the Admiralty for his conduct of naval affairs up to date and for the inspiration which he has been not only to the Navy but to the country as a whole.

6.28 p.m.

Mr. Ritson: I want to put a question rather than to make a speech. I was amazed at the speech of the hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down. He chastised my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) on account of his share in the slowing up of things when this party was in office. I can assure the hon. and gallant Member that my right hon. Friend is the last person he should try to deal with. He should deal with the people on that side of the House.
I got up to refer to the question of salvage. I am living on the East Coast. I usually take the view that it is not my job to ask questions about Army, Navy or Air Force matters if they are likely to give information to the enemy, so I mentioned to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough that he might put to the First Lord of the Admiralty a question in relation to salvage. The time has come when the Navy should consider having a department of salvage of its own.
Near Sunderland there was a very large ship lying along the coast. It was of about 12,000 tons, a tanker, and it lay on the rocks close to the shore. The ship was left there with two large consignments of oil which oozed out of her bottom, and crude oil spread along the coast, much to the horror of the inhabitants. A friend of mine, a member of a large firm of nautical engineers and experts, said that the firm was asked to look at this ship and see if she could be put off. They decided that they would have to put her off before the bad weather commenced. She had cost £140,000 18 months ago. She has lain there for four months in heavy seas which started just before December. My point is that not only that ship but others along the East Coast are lying about and ought to be salvaged, because we are in need of ships. This was a wonderful ship and it would be very useful at this time. If salvage work is at all possible it should be done in the national interest. It would be a good national scheme because if we have a Navy we have as much right to have a department of salvage; the two are interlocked. Even now there are 9,000 tons of oil lying there, which could have been salvaged.
If I may put this in my own crude, "pitmanic" manner, I have sufficient horse-sense to know that that oil and the ship could have been saved, and I would add a reminder that the inconvenience and the horror caused by these things lying along the coast do not help towards maintaining the morale of the people. I can assure the First Lord of the Admiralty that I am as sincere in my remarks as he is. That ship is now lying there rotting and rusting. The experts to whom I have referred said that private enterprise cannot cope with a huge salvage scheme because it does not pay in peace-time. Surely this is a job of work for the Navy. We could do with the metal, although it would be far better if we could salvage the ship in good condition than break it up. I believe that the stern is now a mile away from the body of the ship.
I now come to another point, namely this beastly black-out. I say that because I mean it; it is no easy task for sailors to have to navigate in a black-out. Incidentally, hon. Members on the other side should know what it is to go about


in the dark. Think of the difficulty which is experienced when bringing a ship into port; at the particular part of the coast to which I am referring they dare not even have the lightship working. Surely if there is a period of seven minutes between the sounding of the sirens and the expected attack we can give the sailors a hand by supplying a bit of light. I certainly think something should be done in that direction. Apart from the loss of profits, material and cargo, one must remember that when nervous people see these bits of boats lying about they become even more nervous.
No one in this House would pay a higher tribute to the gallantry of the Navy than I do, but we must not forget the men of the Mercantile Marine. While people are fussing over the Navy men and the soldiers, along comes a fellow with his hat on one side, a muffler round his neck and his face bright with humanity, character and pluck—a man who has probably been torpedoed several times—and no one takes any notice of him. Let us pay a tribute to the men of the Mercantile Marine. Speaking for our people as a whole I would say that we have a great admiration for the gallantry of the men of all ranks—never mind the officers, but all ranks—after the exploits of the last few months. Let us not forget that there are in this country men who are often forgotten. In Sunderland and towns like that there are men who are not mentioned nor bemedalled nor praised but who see daily the naval man getting his share of praise.
The other day I asked a shipowner whether his men were afraid. He said, "No, they are not afraid, but certain things are going on in the Mercantile Marine. Some men are getting worse wages at sea than others are ashore, but we are not short of able seamen." A man I met the other day said that he had gone into the collieries for a rest after having been at sea all his life. This is actually true. Then he said he grew tired of lying about in the pit resting, and he has applied to get back to sea again. While we are giving this vote of thanks, let us not forget the man who is on the battlefield from the day he leaves port to the day he comes back, with cannon to the right and to the left of him, and with beastly things underneath him.

6.40 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question; and to add instead thereof:
This House, while paying the highest tribute to the Royal Navy for its achievements, reiterates the urgent importance of ensuring that trade shall be enabled to flow without interruption to and from our shores; that our Merchant Navy is adequately armed and equipped; that our shipyards are employed to their fullest capacity for adding to our existing strength and replacing those ships destroyed; and that every possible measure be taken to anticipate and provide against the new and increasingly-ruthless methods of warfare likely to be adopted by the enemy.
As hon. Members will see, my Amendment is neither restrictive nor in any way narrowly drawn. In fact, it is sufficiently widely drawn to enable everyone to take part and to contribute accordingly to his knowledge and experience. It may seem strange to the House that a soldier should have chosen this particular Amendment, but, in view of the reserve and silence associated with the naval Service, I thought it only becoming that its more voluble and chatty junior should not lose the opportunity of giving its fraternal support. I hope the senior Service will appreciate my support, since this is the only time in 15 years that I have drawn one of these Motions from the Ballot, and I give my best in order to pay the tribute which I desire to pay to this magnificent Service which has so far kept our country and our island home intact in this war. In passing, I would like to congratulate this silent Service on living up to its name through its Estimates for 1940. They are certainly giving nothing away either to Hitler or this House, and were I depending on the Estimates for food for this speech, it would be as silent as they are.
Fortunately, however, I have other grounds for moving this Amendment, and I have placed them on the Order Paper in order of seniority. I propose to deal with the various aspects of my Amendment in sequence. In the splendid speech which he made earlier to-day, the First Lord of the Admiralty referred to the achievements of the Royal Navy since the war started. It would need a speech all to itself to deal with those achievements alone. I believe the heart of the Empire has been thrilled to read of the


exploits of the Navy from the time of the battle with the "Graf Spee" down to recent days when that fight was concluded. As the "Times" so well put it:
The Navy could not regard its task as completed until having destroyed the Lion they prevented the jack all getting away with the Lion's prey, and so the 'Altmark' was forced to disgorge its prisoners.
I trust that my naval friends and colleagues in the House will extend their good will towards me if I become somewhat lyrical in my tribute to the spirit of the Navy. The spirit of the Navy seems to me to be continuous. They may change from timber to steel, from ball firing cannon to shell firing guns, from the process of singeing King Philip's beard to bristling Hitler's moustache, but the quality, the spirit, and the gallantry of our seamen remain unchanged. As the hon. Member on the other side of the Gangway and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Epsom (Sir A. Southby) have made reference to this point, I would like to make it clear that I include in this tribute the officers and men of the Mercantile Marine. As I rest in my comfortable bed at night, I am frequently disturbed by the thought of that constant vigil being kept around our coasts by the trawlers, the drifters, and the minesweepers, realising as I do that it is due to their unceasing and arduous watchfulness that my rest is made possible. Throughout the raging storms and the bitter gales of the North Sea their temper, spirit, and tenacity remain unimpaired. And so, whatever be the future of this great country of ours, whether good or ill befall it, pray God that we remember the men who maintain the freedom of this country of ours. It may be that we will remember them in future, but that thought causes me to think of the present. Are we doing all we can to help the Navy and the Mercantile Marine at the present time?
As I understand the position, the Merchant Navy, in spite of what the First Lord said this afternoon, have not at the moment enough armament protection, nor have they enough sea-going protection. They are not only exposed, save for their own seamanship and courage, to the terrors of nature, but they are left largely unprotected against the attacks of

a ruthless enemy. I would ask the Civil Lord, when he replies, to say what is the position exactly in regard to guns. Have all our trawlers and drifters been adequately equipped with guns? I know that we were given an assurance by the First Lord this afternoon, but I think the whole country would feel happier if we could have it definitely on record, not only that guns are already provided to a great extent, but that provision for the ships not already equipped will be accelerated as much as possible. And what about rafts and safety gear? There was an important letter from a seaman in one of the daily papers the other day, pointing out that, to the writer's knowledge, trawlers and drifters, and many of the larger ships, were very inadequately equipped with safety gear. I hope that my hon. and gallant Friend, when he replies, will again assure the House that that problem, if it is not entirely solved, is well on the way to solution.
There is another question which has been brought to my notice by the wife of the master of a ship and by the wife of a seaman in my constituency. Men in the service are paid only by the calendar month. That means that they are paid for only four weeks out of 30 or 31 days; so that in the course of the year they lose approximately one month's pay. I admit that substantial increases, in pay have recently been made all round, but this ridiculous state of affairs, if true, demands attention. I hope that we shall hear the explanation which, no doubt, exists. The other day my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor) asked why merchant sailors were not getting; the same rations as their comrades in the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force. The Minister of Food, to whom the Question was addressed, promised consideration of the matter; but a change has taken place since that promise was given, because it has been announced that no longer will conscientious objectors be posted to the Merchant Navy, as the Merchant Navy must be prepared to fight. In that case, the men of the Merchant Navy should get similar treatment to that of those men whose traditional job it is to fight.
I come now to the essential part of the Amendment, as it affects the country as a whole—that is, our ability to ensure


the free flow of trade to and from our shores. That is the essential guts of this Amendment, because it is upon our export trade that we must live and wage this war. Without it, as we have been told so often, we must perish. Have we destroyers enough, have we protective cruisers enough, and what steps are we taking to replace those that have been lost or to increase the safeguards that we are giving to the convoys? I am afraid that we are not doing enough. I hope that my hon. and gallant Friend will be able to reassure me on that point. Also I ask him to say whether we are using our shipyard capacity to its fullest extent. I know that we are not. I know the reasons that may be given: shortage of skilled labour and of raw materials. But these are two difficulties that, I am convinced, can be overcome.
I have the honour to represent one of the most delightful towns in Scotland, Ayr. Ayr has an up-to-date and well-equipped shipyard. It is not one of those which were closed down by Sir James Lithgow—and, incidentally, why the 40-years condition was put into that disastrous arrangement I do not know. The shipyard at Ayr produced 25 to 30 first-class small craft in the last war, and it is ready now, in every way, to take on the job again at a moment's notice. I approached the Minister of Labour on the question of labour, and I was told that there were only 29 shipyard workers unemployed in the Ayr district. I was not satisfied with that, and I went to the local trade union officials, and asked whether they could give me any better information. I found then that there were 125 skilled craftsmen, 250 painters and 400 labourers accustomed to shipyard work available—quite enough with whom to start operations. Many skilled men had been driven during the years of the shipyard depression to seek other means of livelihood. They had become insurance agents, car drivers, clerks, and one thing and another; yet to-day they are ready, in the country's hour of need, to leave these more highly-paid occupations and go back to their old work. What is the case at Ayr is probably equally the case in other parts of the country. Why should not the Minister of Labour conduct a nation-wide survey, in order to rescue these shipyard workers, and bring them back to the trade that they know so well, and for which their

hands still retain their cunning? These numbers, as hon. Members above the Gangway know, can be increased by dilution and by the new training schemes of the Ministry of Labour.
So much for the question of labour. I come to the question of raw materials. I believe that that problem can be solved by implementing an Answer which was given to me the other day by the Minister of Supply—that is by the proper collection, classification and utilisation of the waste material in this country. There is an enormous amount of waste going on in this country. I know that the Ministry of Supply have started a salvage department, that they have voluntary officers all over the country, that they have inundated local authorities with appeals, advice and instruction; but there are millions of pounds' worth of raw materials going to waste in the backyards of garages and on contractors' scrap heaps. If you come into London by Euston or St. Pancras, you see tons of scrap-iron of every kind lying not only on the railway premises, but in adjacent yards. The collection of waste has not been done on a proper basis. I believe that compulsion will have to be adopted. We are now separated from our oversea sources of raw materials by a lawless enemy, who, while paying lip service to neutrality, does not hesitate to destroy neutral ships which are bringing us goods. We can save transport, save costs and save this "vicious spiral" of increasing wages about which the Prime Minister has warned us on many occasions, by looking after this waste. It would save money for the Government, it would help them in their construction plans for shipping, and it would assist in the conduct of the war, if they were now to appoint a Minister of Salvage, whose sole job would be to deal with this vast problem and ensure that our ships and seamen should not be wasted in bringing material from abroad when it is lying about unused at home.
I come to the last point: how to meet this ruthless destruction of our shipping which is going on at present, and which we must expect to be intensified. For one thing, I would jam the German radio. I admit it may be a relief to our sailors to know that they had not been sunk, as announced by the German radio, but I believe that this doubling and trebling


of our alleged losses does have its effect, especially on the morale of our seamen's wives, and that it prevents many homes from being carried on in that spirit of cheerfulness and wellbeing when people hear these exaggerated stories about our losses. With some regret and with some doubt, I put forward the suggestion that we should consider whether we are right in risking the lives of British seamen in picking up German seamen from scuttled German ships. Let us take a case in point. The crew of the German ship" Wakama" deliberately set fire to their ship in order to prevent its cargo falling into our hands. What happened? They were all picked up, and now they are safe, dry, and well treated. On the other hand, the British lightship, "East Dudgeon," to which the First Lord referred, was bombed, machine-gunned, and sunk by a German bomber. The next morning the seven bodies of the crew were picked up on the sea shore. The time has come when we should say that if there is any more scuttling, the crew of the scuttler must follow its cargo. Hitler, no doubt, would not mind; but Germany would. I believe the time is coming when conditions will grow so grave, according to the First Lord's warning, that we must sink the natural feelings of humanity that we have, and address such a warning. It is all very well to be tender—

Sir Frank Sanderson: Two wrongs will never make a right.

Sir T. Moore: I am open to conviction, but I am putting forward the suggestion, because sometimes I wonder whether we realise the gravity of the issue which we face. The more I study the strategic difficulties of this war, the more I realise that we must be prepared to take every honourable step in order to win it. It is a war for national, as well as individual, liberty; it is a war, as the Prime Minister has said, to free the States of Europe from persecution, torment, and misery; it is a war for spiritual right against physical might; it is a war for Christianity against barbarity; it is a war for the rights of conscience and religious freedom; it cannot be fought in kid gloves; it is a war of life and death; it is a war for civilisation, which we must win.

7.0 p.m.

Rear-Admiral Beamish: It falls to my lot to second the Amendment. One of our greatest poets said many hundreds of years ago:
Let not England forget her precedence of teaching the nations how to live.
I submit that we are in the process of continuing that lesson, not only the lesson how to live, but the lesson how to make sacrifices in the cause of humanity. We have heard from the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Ritson) with great pleasure a speech of great charm and great human feeling. I am confident that my hon. Friend's words on the work of the Merchant Service must find an echo in every British heart. I am not surprised personally at the attacks which have been made on lightships and on our-fishing craft. They are in conformity with the Nazi habit and, as such, are to be expected, with other similar habits, in the future. But every step that we can take to avoid extreme measures and every step we can take which sets an example of humanity rather than inhumanity, the better for ourselves and for the world, and therefore I can never advocate any such drastic steps towards crews which have scuttled their ships. Naturally, and with great pleasure, I pay my tribute to my old Service, in which I was so happy for so many years, for their recent achievements, which have in my view done a great deal to dissipate some of the false ideas which came into prominence during the latter part of the late war. I am inclined very much to agree with some of the things that fell from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Epsom (Sir A. Southby) in regard to the risks that are run.
Many years ago I made a speech in this House in which I said that until the Navy had control of all the craft both on, in and above the element in which it worked, it would always be subjected to a grave handicap. That sums up my view and it is in accordance with what fell from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Portsmouth (Sir R. Keyes). In 1915 my right hon. Friend who presented the Estimates said he thought it right to remind the House that they were at war. I submit that a repetition of that remark does not come amiss to-day. Even at that time we were alleged to be suffering


from a grave shortage of merchant shipping, but we had a vastly greater tonnage. Sinking at sight by the enemy had not really begun, convoys were hardly thought of, and neutral ships were still trading and carrying foodstuffs to German ports. On the same occasion the First Lord remarked that he thought the seas were now fairly clear. But bad years were to come and serious events were in store for us.
I was delighted to hear the First Lord to-day make some remarks on the subject of a Fleet in being. It reminded me of what he said 25 years ago. The silent, never sleeping and as yet unchallenged Fleet, lost to view amid the Northern mists was the way he put it in his picturesque style, and it was true. I feel that to-day we are fortunate in the possession of a great Fleet of capital ships in being. Surprises are in store for us. It would be idle to suggest that Europe is the only disturbed part of the world. Europe is not the only danger spot, and we are fortunate and right to keep that great Fleet in being. We must remember that the efficiency of ships and guns, and particularly of explosives, has vastly increased, and how vital it is to replace the older ships which were not designed to stand up to the tremendous destructive effects of modern guns and explosives, from mine, torpedo, and gun. One must remember also that the methods of defence invariably lag seriously behind those of offence. No one can foresee the future but, if anyone can make a fairly good guess at it, I feel that we are fortunate in our First Lord. We are suffering to-day from the effects of what is called the London Treaty, in which there was a parity Clause—faith, hope and parity, and parity was said to be the most important of all. I am reminded by my hon. and gallant Friend's speech how it was forced upon us and how it has shackled our Fleet for so long and that we are still suffering from the effects of it. The thought that we were the only nation at that time whose defeat at sea would bring humiliation and ruin touched no chord of sympathy, and it is proper for us to remember that we are the masters of our destiny and that no other nation is in any way concerned with that destiny.
I should like to pay my tribute to successive Boards of Admiralty, and to the

present Board, for their instinct of steady adherence to the principles of maritime war. I find in my experience that people, perhaps even some Members of this House, are not wholly aware that we are at war. It seems to me that our past successes and our present power have, as it were, anaesthetised us, lulled us into a false sense of security. Indeed, the sea affair is a closed book to the average citizen. There is pride in the sea affair and sorrow for the losses and disasters which sometimes fall upon us, but the country does not appreciate the dangers and the incredible magnitude and complexity of the task and the meaning of even a partial failure as it would affect the country, notwithstanding all the eloquence of the First Lord. I have very often reminded audiences that I have addressed that two-thirds of our civilian requirements have to come overseas. They are generally incredulous, and I have noticed this incredulity among other people. In fact, we have had examples of it recently in the House, as exemplified by the, to me, deplorable pressure brought upon the Government, and still being brought, in regard to the importation of feeding-stuffs—about, the most uneconomic cargo you can carry—and petrol. People seem to forget that a convoy of 30, 40, or 50 ships carrying, as it does, aid from overseas from the Empire, from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, are for the whole of that period completely debarred from using a single ton for the benefit of the civilian population of the country. But for the Fleet, and but for the Merchant Navy, the country would to-day be defeated, ruined, and humiliated.
I want to give an instance of a handicap which affects the action of our Fleet and also has a serious effect upon our cause in general. I refer to our consideration for the tender feelings of some of the more trembling neutrals, and of other neutrals who are waiting their chance, and some of whom are now taking it. I would fortify that point of view by reminding the House that this moment onboard something like 90 or more German merchant ships there is more than £3,000,000 worth of British property taking refuge in neutral ports scattered all over the world. With all our naval might, we do not seem to be in a position to rescue our property from those neutral ports. I hope that perhaps


the Civil Lord may have some information as to what the legal position is in regard to such valuable property. It seems to me a very curious state of affairs, and a very serious one indeed for the owners of that cargo, and it is only one more proof of the shortage of merchant ships from which we are suffering so severely and which—I do not very often criticise the Government—they did so little before the war to rectify. It is well to remember our handicaps.
May I say a word or two about the German submarine campaign and the prospects of the future in that connection? It is obvious to me that the enemy campaign from which we have suffered in the past so greatly is certain to be greatly intensified, remembering that the enemy are hindered by no feelings for neutrals and no fears whatever in regard to our feelings. There are strong rumours that they have a programme of something like 400 to 500 submarines. I believe something like 350 were either built or projected, but mostly built, during the last war, but at that time there was, at any rate, a certain glimmering of conscience in the German mind in regard to the use of submarines. Those glimmerings of conscience have totally disappeared to-day, and there is no check whatever on their brutal and ferocious intentions in regard to bringing pressure upon us through our merchant shipping. I recollect that in the late war our rate of destruction of enemy submarines never quite approached the rate of construction.
Unless we are very careful, we shall find ourselves faced with a very much greater risk than perhaps is present in the minds of people at the present time. The campaign by submarine warfare, aided by mines and by aircraft laying mines, is the lynch-pin of the German war upon this country. They have expended years of concentration, thought, effort, and of design upon it, and no wishes or hopes that we may have justify us in any measure of complacency. I am glad to know that for a long time past the Admiralty have had it in mind that the menace of the German submarines is likely to grow, and are taking precautions and providing a vast number of small craft capable of withstanding such an attack. I am reminded of something which was said by an ex-Member of

this House with reference to the generation of Englishmen during the Napoleonic wars, the generation which he described as
That dauntless and dogged generation that never cried craven and never drew breath.
I feel that we have that sort of generation to-day, and that we have the support of the vast majority of the whole House of Commons in prosecuting the war.
I wish to make two small but important appeals to the Civil Lord. The first relates to pensioners and other elderly men who were called up and have now served for some six months or more, many of them over the age of 55, and perhaps not very fit. Many of them were in business in civil life and are longing to get back to their homes. I hope that the Civil Lord will be able to give some assurance in his reply that the fate of these men may be considered and that they may be relieved as opportunity offers and as young men come along under the Military Service Act and under the voluntary system. I know of several cases of what seem to be very great hardship.
The only other appeal that I have to make is that, now that everybody agrees that we are up to our necks in this war, and there is such community of thought and co-operation among our people, we should utilise that spirit and remember the small boys and the youth of the country who are growing up. Many of them have implanted in their minds a deep love of the sea and of their country, but they are not able to gratify their feelings because they are not able to afford the training for the sea. Training for the sea ought to begin at an early age if the best results are to be obtained, and therefore I ask the Civil Lord to try and give some assurance that the Navy League Sea Cadets particularly, and any other organisations which concentrate upon training boys and youngsters for the sea shall receive financial encouragement, and indeed every encouragement from the Board of Admiralty. I have spoken already longer than I intended, but I feel very deeply about the fate of our country, as everybody else does in this House. I realise, as I believe we all do, that the war will be a long and desperate one, but the sacrifice will be worth while. I am reminded again of something which I read


recently which shows how difficult it is to foretell the future. It is as follows:
''Oh whither, ere it be fulfilled,
Ere its fierce blast be hushed and stilled,
Shall blow the wind of doom?

7.20 p.m.

Mr. Ammon: I take this early opportunity of intimating a very unusual happening in this House, namely, that of rising to support the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore). On this occasion we find the House united. The First Lord has already, in eloquent and graphic terms, expressed not only the feelings of gratitude of this House but of the whole country to the men and officers of the Royal Navy for the services that they are performing. But the men of the Merchant Service mast not be forgotten. They probably appear much less in the limelight and get less praise than the fighting men of the Royal Navy. It is well, therefore, to take note that in the speech of the First Lord there was something of a warning to which it is worth while giving heed. When speaking on a similar occasion in 1915, the right hon. Gentleman expressed what was the then opinion, that the Navy was never in greater control or ruled the seas more effectively than it did on that occasion', and yet within a very short time we were faced with one of the most terrible menaces—that of the U-boat campaign—that brought this country very near to the verge of starvation. While expressing our meed of praise and satisfaction because of the position at which we have arrived, it is well to remember that we cannot take things quietly or rest upon our oars.
It is essential that we should extend and strain every nerve in an endeavour to be ready to meet any emergency which may afterwards arise. Although the First Lord spoke as he did in 1915, in April, 1917, we had lost nearly half a million tons of shipping through the U-boat campaign which brought us perilously near to disaster. It will not do to allow any such thing to be repeated in the present war. The Amendment now before us expresses our gratitude to the men of the Royal Navy for their achievements, and reiterates the necessity of keeping a regular flow of trade to and from our shores. The First Lord pointed out that in 1917, 75 per cent. of the

armed merchant vessels escaped, and that only 25 per cent. of those that were unarmed escaped being sunk. It is a very different proposition to-day. There is an additional menace now which did not threaten our merchantmen and seamen at that time—the menace from the air—and it is necessary that even more of our ships should be fully armed.
While not yielding one iota in my esteem or admiration for the men of the Royal Navy and in the desirability of prosecuting the war with every energy to a successful conclusion, it must not be taken amiss if I put a question or pass certain criticisms. This will be done in the hope of pointing out weak spots which may afterwards be strengthened. It may interest the House to know that since the First Lord has spoken I have already heard from representatives of the Merchant Service of some further indications of the success of his drive and energy, and of how it is appreciated by that Service. I was informed that my hon. Friend the Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) led a deputation representing the men of the Merchant Service asking that all vessels should be armed. I am informed that the very first day that the trawlers were armed, they beat off an attack from the air, which indicates the necessity and urgency of this matter. There was also pressure put upon the Admiralty with regard to certain ships on the East Coast whose crews were suffering because they had not sufficient rafts. That matter was put before the First Lord, and within two days rafts were supplied to the ships. That shows what can be done when there is determination to do it, and it should be remembered with regard to other matters.
There has been very little jobbing backwards or of taking up old controversies except by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Lewes (Rear-Admiral Beamish) and the hon. and gallant Member for Epsom (Sir A. Southby). They could not refrain from some criticism of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) with regard to the London Naval Treaty, and an endeavour was made to show that somehow or another the depletion of our Navy was due in a large measure to that Treaty. Surely that is not in accordance with the facts, and one must not let it go unchallenged altogether. In 1930 we were relatively stronger than we were in 1915,


and stronger than any other navy in the world, and that was largely the result of the London Naval Treaty. I would point out, to the credit of my right Hon. Friend, that it was he who started the programme which resulted in the laying down of the "Leander" and the "Achilles," which we remember for the great services they have contributed. There was also the question of what was to be done with regard to Singapore. While I am not going to hide behind the fact that I was only a junior Minister, it has to be remembered to the credit of the Labour Government that they made a very big attempt to bring about some world understanding and made a gesture in the interests of world peace, and though it failed, it ought to stand to their credit rather than to their discredit.
I want to enter a caveat against the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs with regard to the gospel of reprisals. I hope that in no circumstances will this nation or this House ever be led into that sort of thing. It must be remembered that we are in this war against the very thing that is suggested. We are righting against brutality and the lack of civilisation, and surely it is to our credit that we have rescued crews who scuttle their own ships. It is just as well to remember that "Lord Haw-Haw" of Zeesen actually broadcast that we had machine-gunned the very people we rescued. The statement of the hon. and gallant Member only gives a handle to that sort of case. It is a curious thing that we are in this war for spiritual right and the defence of civilisation and that there should be an advocacy of a policy that seems a negation of these things. Everyone of us has felt the burning indignation which the hon. and gallant Member expresses about these people, who can hardly be treated as civilised beings, but we have to keep our passions under control and maintain our position of fighting for something much higher.
As a matter of interest I looked up the Debate on the Navy Estimates of 1917, when the then First Lord of the Admiralty was Lord Carson, and it is melancholy to reflect that of all the people who took part in that debate only two hold the stage at present—the First Lord of the Admiralty and the hon. Member for

Plaistow (Mr. Thorne). If we changed the names of the people who took part then, for those who took part to-day, we would see that the Debate, curiously enough, followed very much the same lines. There was then discussed the need for arming merchantmen, submarine activities, the need for more ships and the necessity for keeping open the trade routes indicating, as far as Germany is concerned, the truth of the French motto, "The more it changes the more it is the same thing." At that time Lord Carson drew attention to the great necessity of keeping public opinion well informed so far as was compatible with safety and the right conduct of the war. It is worth while quoting his words, for they are applicable to-day. He was quoting from a speech he himself delivered in November, 1916:
There is no use our shutting our eyes to the great difficulties we are going to have in the future for transport. It is all very well to hide away in the corners of newspapers the submarine menace. It can do us no good shutting our eyes to that fact and we are really not telling the Germans anything they do not know. They know perfectly and no small print in the comer of a newspaper will make any difference."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st February, 1917; col. 1363; Vol. XC]
I think, in some respects, it would be just as well if these words could be kept in mind to-night, because I trust that we shall get a little more information than we appear to do. I say nothing about the fact that some people knew some months ago of the injury, revealed to-day, to two of our great capital ships, but as regards the number of sinkings it does not do any good if they are not wholly revealed and some time later it is stated what did or did not happen. It arouses in the mind of the people a feeling as to whether more information is being kept back. I only say this because one wonders about the 200,000 net tons of shipping said to have been lost. From the information I get from letters and from my association with another kindred organisation, as a member of the Management Committee of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, I am bound to say that these figures do not seem to tally with some of my information. The information seems to indicate that there must have been heavier sinkings than we have been informed about. There is, undoubtedly, uneasiness as to whether we are using all our resources of money, labour and organisation.
Members should make a careful survey of the Order Paper of the last few weeks, because, from the Questions asked, there have been doubts as to whether we are fully informed with regard to sinkings and other things. My hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. David Adams) yesterday asked a Question as to the rate of building and was told that all yards now in production are fully manned. What does that mean? How many yards are in production and are all possible yards that can be turned to service being turned to service? It is no good our carrying Resolutions like this if we are going to be fobbed off with side-tracking answers of that description, which carry us no further. After that answer there followed Supplementary Questions by the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell), the hon. Member for Jarrow (Miss Wilkinson) and the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) who pointed out that in their particular constituencies there are possibilities and facilities for still further consideration. I ask that the hon. Gentleman who is going to reply will take note of these things because it is sheer nonsense to talk about all our resources being used when we have a great army of unemployed, and evidence of vacant and dismantled shipyards.
I want to ask one or two urgent questions, and I know that if there is anything indiscreet in them they will not be answered. What is the rate of production now going on and is all available plant and machinery being put to use? Is full use being made of the powers of requisitioning? Is it intended to open all yards and plant which have fallen into disuse? Are there sufficient crews to man the ships? My hon. Friend the Member for Seaham yesterday asked a question about the rate of production of guns and their calibre, with special reference to the arming of merchant ships. In the last war guns caused submarines to submerge and, therefore, made it much more difficult for them to get accurate shooting with a torpedo. Now there is a different proposition, because of the menace from the air. There must also be anti-aircraft guns. Are these ships so equipped or are any waiting to be equipped? What power is the Government exercising to see that companies carry out their wishes in regard to the arming of merchant ships?
I noticed that the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson) made a statement in the House the other day that there was at least one company which was refusing to arm its merchantmen on the ground of expense. When it is a question of the saving of human life expense should not be allowed to stand in the way. The Parliamentary Secretary was also asked the other day whether ships were going without convoy because they could not be given sufficient protection, and the amazing answer was, "I do not think so." Surely this is not a satisfactory answer. We ought to be told whether ships are refusing to go in convoy if they feel there is not sufficient protection or because they are not moving fast enough. On grave issues like this we have a right to expect more definite information. Can we be told how long it is expected to be before all ships are armed and what is the rate of production both of ships and of armaments? Are all guns of an up-to-date pattern and are obsolete guns, such as Lewis guns, being supplied for the time being in order that ships might have some form of protection? I do not know whether this is a discreet question, but will there be sufficient oil fuel?
Having said this, I want to add that I have never been wholly convinced of the accuracy of the statement that time is necessarily on our side. We have heard that there seem to be various ways by which supplies are getting into Germany and that to a large extent she has secured what she wants to do—sit back and await the turn of events. We have got to pursue a policy, such as is suggested in this Amendment and indicated by the First Lord, with vigour, determination and speed. In 1915 the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) said time was a hesitating neutral, undecided on which side to swing his terrible scythe. We have to see that time swings his scythe on our side. We cannot sit idly by and wait for it to come. Are steps being taken to see that the ships which are being built possess a speed superior to that of an enemy submarine submerged, and that the guns outrange those of German submarines? These may be elementary things, but in the light of some statements which have


been made it seems to me that the elementary and obvious things are those which need to be emphasised.
The House has resolved itself into a council of State in this matter. There is no division of opinion as to the need for those things which are mentioned in the hon. and gallant Member's Amendment. There is a determination and drive on the part of the Opposition equal to that on the Government benches. I have put forward one or two suggestions and asked one or two questions on matters where it seems to me there is a need for a tightening up and a speeding up in the prosecution of our aims, so that this neutral time shall not slip from our side. I have done so in order that as soon as possible we shall get those things for which we entered the war. We did not do so in any spirit of revenge, but we are determined not to rest or be satisfied until our arms have been crowned with success, not only in a military sense but in the sense that nations will be able to sit down and feel that they can follow their ordinary occupations in peace and security, none daring to make them afraid.

7.48 p.m.

The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Captain Austin Hudson): It may be convenient if I deal now with the Amendment moved by the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore), and then the House will be able to return to the main Debate and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will answer the questions which have not been covered by the Amendment. The House will be grateful to the hon. and gallant Member for the interesting subject he has chosen as a result of his success in the Ballot, his only success, I understand, during a long time in this House. The Amendment really divides itself into four parts: trade, the arming of our merchant fleet, merchant shipbuilding, and counter-measures to be adopted against German methods of warfare. I want to say more about merchant shipbuilding than the other three subjects, because it is obviously one of interest to the House and has only recently come under the aegis of the First Lord; also because I find there is really so little that I can say for obvious reasons on the other three parts of the Amendment. Let me deal

with the question of trade. I can claim that the Admiralty have achieved so far considerable success in this direction. We heard something on that subject from the First Lord earlier in the Debate, but, apart from the general cover afforded to our shipping by our main forces, the convoy system has been outstandingly successful. The last figures I have been given are rather striking. Out of 10,097 ships, 10,076 have been brought safely to their destination.

Mr. Alexander: All of them uninjured in any way?

Captain Hudson: I think so. It works out at one-fifth of 1 per cent., a figure given by the Prime Minister in his last speech. Our imports and our exports have risen steadily month by month since the war began, and our exports are now up to the immediate pre-war figures, which is satisfactory. I have every confidence that as our forces continue to expand and our arrangements to mature, so also will the trade figures continue to rise. As to the point put by the hon. Member for Camberwell, North (Mr. Ammon), whether ships have been refused convoy, I have no knowledge of it, but, naturally, as we are able to turn out more warships suitable for convoying, this arduous duty will be more easily carried out.

Mr. Ammon: I did not say that they had been refused convoy, but I asked whether they themselves had refused to be convoyed.

Captain Hudson: On that point I have made no inquiry, but I do not think I have heard of any ship refusing convoy. Many neutral ships have accepted it. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to say a word upon that. Then, as regards the arming of merchant ships, steady progress has been made with ships of 500 tons and over, and the number which has been so armed is 1,920 out of 3,125, but I can assure the House that the rate is being accelerated every week. Vessels are now being supplied with machine-guns to deal with low-flying aircraft. I cannot give the actual figures, but I can say that many have been already supplied with this form of weapon, and we are now proceeding, as a very urgent matter, to provide close range anti-aircraft weapons on all vessels in the danger area as early


as possible. The arming of these vessels is paid for partly by the owners and partly by the Government, but the terms as to the percentage is at the moment under discussion. The guns and crews are supplied by the Navy but the fact that there is a certain amount of discussion as to the terms has not in any way been allowed to slow up the provision of these guns.

Mr. Shinwell: Can the hon. and gallant Member say what progress is being made in the training of merchant seamen in naval gunnery?

Captain Hudson: I think I will leave that question to be dealt with by the Parliamentary Secretary.

Captain Marsden: Is not the cost very clear and very definite; the liability of the owners for a 12-pounder gun is limited to £140?

Captain Hudson: I think that is so, but the actual terms are still under discussion.

Mr. Alexander: Are you training men from the crew of a particular ship, or are you training separate gunners?

Captain Hudson: The answer is that we are doing both. Rafts and lifebelts have been supplied to the crews of trawlers and other ships. I cannot say much about counter-measures of warfare, because, obviously, that would be giving away too much, but I can assure the House that effective counter-measures have not only been evolved but are being put into effect, in some cases with very great results. As regards the point put by the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs in connection with the crews of scuttled ships. I answered a Question about that in January and said that we could not adopt his suggestion. It met, I think, with the general approval of the House, but I did say in answer to a Supplementary Question that special orders have been given to the Navy in regard to this matter. Obviously, I cannot say anything further, but we hope that the special orders will have the desired effect of preventing ships from being scuttled, without going to the lengths which the hon. and gallant Member wishes to go.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: May we still take it that these special orders do not include leaving men in the water to drown?

Captain Hudson: Most certainly. The Amendment also deals with the importance of seeing that our shipyards are employed to their fullest capacity for adding to our existing strength and replacing those ships which are destroyed. We believe that the steps we have taken and are now taking will achieve that effect. The House will remember that as from 1st February merchant shipbuilding and repair came under the Admiralty, and that a new member of the Board of Admiralty was created as Controller of Merchant Shipbuilding and Repair. One effect of this is that when the Board of Admiralty are deciding on their building programme they can make it a balanced programme in which both war and merchant ships take their place. It is our intention to increase very largely our present output of merchant ships in the course of the year. I am not permitted, for various reasons, to give the exact figure at which we aim, but I am allowed to say that the figure which we hope to attain is greater than the figure mentioned as being a high peak by the right hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander).

Mr. Shinwell: Up to what date?

Captain Hudson: In the course of the year.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the hon. and gallant Member referring to the date when the First Lord took the responsibility for merchant shipbuilding or the date of the beginning of the war?

Captain Hudson: I think the date would be that at which these measures commenced to take effect. Our endeavour is to get a yearly figure of tonnage which will be in excess of the figure mentioned by the right hon. Member for Hills-borough.

Mr. Shinwell: Does that mean from 1st February, the date on which Sir James Lithgow was placed in charge of merchant shipbuilding, that is, a year from then, or is it a year from the beginning of the war?

Captain Hudson: I think it is a year from 1st February.

Mr. Shinwell: Then who is responsible for the position from the beginning of the war until 1st February?

Captain Hudson: The date is from the time it came under the Admiralty and, therefore, under the Naval Estimates.

Mr. Shinwell: We want to know where we are, as this is most important. The hon. and gallant Member has told us that the objective of the Admiralty in relation to merchant ships is a figure exceeding that for the last war. Is that for the first year of the war, or is it for a year beginning on 1st February?

Captain Hudson: We are aiming at the greatest production we can get, and the figure is from the time when the Admiralty took over and made their plans for getting this tonnage. It is a year from 1st February. I cannot deal with what happened in the past; I can only speak as to the future. To get this very greatly increased figure, the first essential is to see that all yards which are immediately available for merchant ship construction are used to their maximum capacity. It may then be possible and necessary to re-open certain other yards, provided that labour and materials are available and that existing yards are not denuded of their man-power by so doing. I have no doubt that hon. Members have seen that discussions are taking place with the Ministry of Labour, the Shipbuilding Employers' Federation and the unions to see how we can obtain these men and the additional number which would be required to open other yards. We estimate that some 20,000 more men could now be absorbed in existing yards. There seems to have been some difference of opinion to-day as to whether skilled men are available now to do this work. I have been in touch with the unions and with everybody who I thought could help, and I cannot see that any skilled man should lack a job at the present time. I have discussed the matter with the dockyard officials and everybody concerned, and I find that there is a great shortage of skilled men. It may be, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs said, that there are certain types of people who were once engaged in shipbuilding in Ayr and similar places, but unless we can get other skilled men, it may be very difficult to absorb such people. I took careful note of my hon. and gallant Friend's speech. I assure him that the first thing we shall do tomorrow will be to see whether there is anybody in Ayr whom we can absorb at

the present time, and also whether the Ayr yard could be used for war purposes. I believe there is one yard in my hon. and gallant Friend's constituency, called the Irvine yard, which is being used for repairs.

Sir T. Moore: Yes, and Ardrossan.

Captain Hudson: I think we shall be keeping that yard fully employed right up to the end of the war. If any hon. Member can think of ways—we are negotiating with the unions, the Ministry of Labour, and so forth—in which more men can be brought to the shipyards, I hope he will give that information to the Admiralty. What we do not want to do is to open new yards, and by opening them denude other yards which at the present time are not really being used to their full capacity, because there are still 20,000 skilled men whom we want to take on in those yards.

Sir T. Moore: I do not want my hon. and gallant Friend to regard my speech about Ayr from a strictly limited point of view. I want the whole country to be subjected to a survey, and I ask that my hon. and gallant Friend or the Minister of Labour should undertake it. I ask him particularly, in his conversations with the trade unions, to seek out the men in other occupations, who may have been engaged in those occupations for 15 years now, and have gone off the trade union books. I know that is a difficult thing to do, but I think it is the only way.

Captain Hudson: That is the very problem on which we are engaged now. We are trying to get the men wherever they may be, and even if they have never before been employed in a shipyard, if they can be used in that work.

Mr. Woodburn: May I call the Civil Lord's attention to a small shipyard at Alloa which is capable of repairing small ships and which was very useful in the last war? There is labour available there, I understand, and I should like to know why it is that so far the Admiralty have not made use of it. Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman keep this shipyard in mind?

Captain Hudson: This is a very difficult problem. We want to get the present yards working to their full capacity at first, and then we can see what other yards can be opened and how we can get


the necessary men to do the work. Merchant ships are to be built in two ways, either by issuing licences to firms to build ships for private owners, in which case they must be built under certain specifications to ensure that they are suitable for war-time requirements, or by direct orders placed by the Admiralty for new ships of the type most needed at the moment. These Government-owned ships will be run by the Ministry of Shipping, being managed by shipping companies as agents of the Government. In order to speed up the work as much as possible, each yard is doing repeat orders, and those repeat orders of ships which they have already made are being simplified as far as possible. Of the new construction, 47 per cent. will be coal-burning. The biggest class of ships—and these ships will cover all the types which we require—will be 5,000-ton tramp steamers, which take seven months to make. It will interest hon. Members to know that tankers—another most important class—take 14 months to make owing to the fact that they are so much more complicated.

Mr. Shinwell: Are any being built?

Captain Hudson: Yes.

Mr. Shinwell: How many?

Captain Hudson: I have the figure here, but perhaps I had better give it to the hon. Member and not mention it across the Floor of the House. I want to say a few words about repairs, a most important thing in time of war. It is not the function of the Admiralty actually to do repairs, but it is their function to see that such repairs are expeditiously and economically carried out, and—alsovery important in war time—that the necessary material is forthcoming. The principal officers of the Ministry of Shipping in each port act in this question of repairs as licensing officers for the Admiralty. For the privately-owned ships, the cost of repairs is settled direct between the owner and the repairer, and for the Government-owned ships the cost of repairs is settled between the Ministry of Shipping and the repairer, and in order, as far as possible, to decentralise, local officers will deal with supply, materials, and other important matters in the shipbuilding areas themselves.

Mr. Shinwell: What about the dry-dock accommodation? Many ships under-

going repairs require to be surveyed and dry-dock accommodation is necessary. Have the Admiralty made any survey of the dry-dock capacity?

Captain Hudson: A survey has been taking place and is not quite finished at the present time. I agree with the hon. Member that that is one of the most important questions in connection with merchant shipbuilding and repairs. I do not wish to detain the House any longer, as there are many hon. Members who wish to speak, and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will answer various points that have been raised in the Debate. I hope that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr will now feel it possible to withdraw the Amendment in order that Mr. Speaker in due course will be permitted to leave the Chair.

Mr. Woodburn: May I raise a point on which I am not quite clear? The hon. and gallant Gentleman says that present shipyards could absorb a further 20,000 men before working to full capacity. If there are other shipyards, perhaps small ones, in other parts of the country which have the men and the ability to repair or build small ships, does the hon. and gallant Gentleman mean that the big shipyards will take these men away from the small shipyards, in order to develop the big yards to capacity, and in so doing perhaps denude other areas of skilled men?

Captain Hudson: I do not mean quite that. We would not open a small shipyard and allow certain of the men to come from the other shipyards and thereby slow down the work that was being done in those yards.

Mr. Woodburn: I do not think I have made myself clear. If the small shipyard is at present working but not being utilised, does the Civil Lord mean it will not get any work until the big shipyards are working to full capacity?

Captain Hudson: No, it does not mean that. We are frightened that if we opened new yards before the present yards are working to full capacity, it might drain men away from the present yards and slow down construction, which, of course, is the very thing we want to avoid.

Sir T. Moore: Although my hon. and gallant Friend the Civil Lord was somewhat reluctant to give information—which is understandable—he has shown such a willing spirit that I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question again proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

8.11 p.m.

Mr. Ede: Unlike most hon. Members who have spoken in the Debate, I represent one of the great seaports of the country, and one whose men in the Mercantile Marine have been compelled, by reason of the situation of the port, to play a very great part in this war. During the present week, one of my constituents claimed that the vessel of which he was master rammed a submarine. On the high seas an aeroplane, belonging I believe to the Royal Navy, descended beside a ship and assisted in saving the crew. The master of that ship was a constituent of mine. On the "Graf Spee" there were more masters from my constituency than from any other port in the country, and I believe it is claimed that there were at least as many men from my constituency on the "Alt-mark" as from any other port in the country. Therefore, it would be making representative government a farce if I were not this evening, on behalf of my constituency—and not merely the men of my constituency, but the wives of the men in the Mercantile Marine and the dependants of those men—to express our thanks to the Royal Navy for the way in which they have looked after us during the six months of this struggle.
To my mind, one of the most heartening things that we have heard so far was of the faith that still burned in the hearts of the men on the "Altmark" that, although the ship was wriggling, as the First Lord so graphically said, down the coast of Norway, before she could reach a German port the British Navy would save them from the fate of being interned in Germany. That was the kind of faith that upheld the British Army in the dark days of March and April, 1918, and it is the spirit which we shall have to keep alive if we are to sustain ourselves during some of the dark and troublous days that lie ahead of us in this war. Therefore, I am certain

that the House will rejoice at the spirit that was shown by the men on the "Altmark" as well as by the men of the British Navy who obeyed the order given by the Admiralty to rescue those men from the fate that might otherwise have overtaken them. I am sure that the very moving speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Durham (Mr. Ritson) represents very fully the feeling that animates everyone in the country with regard to these men upon whose continued courage the fate of this country depends.
I do not wish to say one syllable which would appear to belittle the courage of the men of the Royal Navy who have been enduring the hardships of the seas, in Arctic weather, during recent months. I have spoken to some of them whom I knew as Naval Reservists in civil occupations, and I have been astonished at the way in which they have sustained those hardships and perils and their willingness to return to sea after a short period of leave. But let us be sure of this: However high the courage exhibited by the men of the Royal Navy, their task cannot be completed, unless the men of the Mercantile Marine are prepared to keep the seas and to go about their occupation, which if more humdrum than that of the Navy is, none the less, vital in these difficult days. I am bound to say that my hon. Friends and I find it difficult to follow some of the statements which have just been made by the Civil Lord. I gather that it will not be until after the first 17 months of war that we shall get a year's production of merchant tonnage under this programme. The statement made certainly did not appear to go beyond that.

Captain Hudson: I could not understand why the hon. Member kept on cross-examining me. The position is that the rate of progress shall be x tons per year—a figure which I could not mention but which I was permitted to say was in excess of the figure mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) as the high figure of 1918. That is to be the yearly production. Therefore, for the 18 months it will be that figure, plus whatever has been achieved in the first six months of the war. That figure, I regret to say, I was not permitted to give to the House but it would be x tons—which


is a higher figure than that mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough as being a good figure—plus the production of the first six months of the war.

Mr. Ede: I reached the figure of 17 months in this way. From 3rd September to 1st February is, roughly, five months. I had not thought, from what I heard, that the production during those five months represented any substantial figure at all. I notice that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Shipping shakes his head, but, certainly, while the work remained in his Department, we seemed to get no very great satisfaction about the rate of production then taking place.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Shipping (Sir Arthur Salter): Perhaps I may point out that the output of ships in the first five months of the war could hardly have depended to any extent on the work done by the Ministry of Shipping which did not come into existence until some time after the war began. After all, it takes seven months to make a ship.

Mr. Ede: We are gradually getting a complete confession from the various Ministers who occupy that bench. I did not imagine that a ship which was laid down between 3rd September and 1st February would have been launched by 1st February, but some work ought to have been done on it. Our complaint with regard to the whole question of merchant tonnage was that the Ministry of Shipping too long delayed its action and that we ought to have had these plans ready before the war. Now that this matter has been handed over to the Admiralty, we must hope that the energy and drive of the First Lord will be more successful in producing ships than the character and experience of the Minister of Shipping—the possession of which qualities was the excuse for appointing the right hon. Gentleman to his office—have been in the time during which he was responsible. We understand now that a programme covering the period for which the First Lord became responsible has been started and that it is hoped to produce a figure higher than that mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough during the period between 1st February, 1940, and

31st January, 1941, which will be the first complete year for which the Admiralty will be responsible. During the period of 17 months from 3rd September, 1939, to 1st February, 1941, it is hoped to get a higher tonnage than that mentioned by my right hon. Friend, plus such tonnage as may be due to the efforts of the Ministry of Shipping in the period between 3rd September, 1939, and 1st February, 1940, and we are told that after 1st February, 1941, there will be an annual programme at least as great as that announced by the Civil Lord.

Captain Hudson: That is the rate of production. That is the ideal at which we are aiming.

Mr. Ede: When I think of some of the ideals that have been enshrined in the heart of the hon. and gallant Gentleman I feel that is a very unsatisfying interpretation. I had just got a grain of comfort out of his silence. I regret that his eloquence should have completely wiped it away. At any rate, one must hope that the First Lord will give the merchant tonnage question the same attention as he gives to the building of war ships, because unless we get the ships for the merchant navy, all the building for the Royal Navy may prove useless.
I am bound to say, also, that having regard to the condition in my constituency, which is a great shipbuilding and ship-repairing centre, I cannot understand the present position with regard to labour. A year ago 1,500 shipwrights and ship-repairers were unemployed in my constituency. Since the outbreak of war, the monthly figure has varied but it is always over 500 and in some cases is nearly 800. Some yards are fully occupied; others are not. There is one of which I know, a very fine yard in which I believe at one time practically all the trawlers for Norway were built. It is the yard of Charles Rennoldson which was put out of commission by the body over which Sir James Lithgow presided. It could well be used for building the type of vessel of which, according to the First Lord's statement, we are still urgently in need. I can only express the hope that at an early date these 500 to 800 men will be absorbed in the building programme of which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has spoken. These men have built some of the finest vessels ever launched from British slips and it is


difficult to understand why they should be out of employment when, according to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, we need their labour so badly.
I wish to ask whether the Government have ever gone to an Employment Exchange like that of South Shields? After all the war has been going on for six months now and there have never been fewer than 524 shipwrights unemployed in South Shields. Have they ever sent someone like the hon. and gallant Member for Chertsey (Captain Marsden), who, I understand, plays a prominent part in the shipbuilding programme on the Tyneside, to ascertain whether these men are tit to be put into work straight away? In the various shipbuilding centres in the country there must be a large number of men who, at any rate, claim to be shipwrights, and are unemployed. What efforts are being made to put them to work, and those men formerly employed in great yards like Palmers at Jarrow, where a number of my men work—men who have turned out vessels, whether they were small ships or great liners, which have never been equalled for workmanship in the history of shipbuilding. If they are not engaged on essential war work in industry, they should be, if possible, brought back to work in shipbuilding. If necessary, some kind of refresher course could be given to them before they are put on the urgent task of building ships for the Navy, or the Mercantile Marine.
From what I have seen in my own constituency, I should like to reinforce what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Durham (Mr. Ritson), and by the hon. and gallant Member for Orkney and Shetland (Major Neven-Spence) in regard to salvage. In my own constituency one vessel was beached inside the Tyne and another a few hundred yards to the South of the Tyne; and near the mouth of the Wear there were other vessels. It seems a pity that these vessels should be allowed to be broken up by the sea when they might be salved and used at this time with great advantage. It should take less time to repair a salvaged ship than to build a new one. I earnestly hope that the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty will pay attention to what was said by the hon. and gallant Member for Orkney and Shetland and my hon. Friend the

Member for Durham, and enable this problem of salvage to be dealt with.
I am sure that representatives of the Admiralty in the House to-day can have no complaints about the way in which their Department has been handled by speakers in any quarter of the House. We all realise that on the British Navy and its sister service, the British Mercantile Marine, the fate of this country, and the fate of the civilisation we desire to defend, depend. The Admiralty can be sure of this, that if they are zealous in the prosecution of the war, and in looking after the men, replacing lost tonnage and salvaging tonnage, they will have the full support of the House. They must expect from time to time, realising as we do the importance of their task, that we shall be insistent that they pursue that policy with zeal and do not slacken in the task which the country has called upon them to do.

8.30 p.m.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: I wish to endorse everything that has been said in regard to the extremely efficient manner in which the Royal Navy has carried out its arduous duties since the beginning of this war. I hope the House will pardon me if I say it is my greatest regret that instead of standing here making a speech I am not playing my part, however humble it might be, beside the officers and men of my old Service. It is said that opportunity makes the man, but that is only true providing the man is trained and prepares himself to take full advantage of it when it arises. I think it is true to say that, so far as the Royal Navy is concerned, the officers and men have fitted themselves in a most efficient manner in peace-time, so that when the opportunity has arrived during the war they have taken full advantage of it. In no instance has that been more fully borne out than in the brilliant execution of the plan, thought out beforehand, and made known to the officers in command of the other ships, by the officer commanding those three ships which eventually at the end of the action resulted in the destruction of the "Graf Spee." It was not just good chance, or good fortune, but a question of putting into practice the preparations done beforehand so that when the opportunity came these units of His Majesty's Navy would be able to take full advantage of it.
The country has been thrilled with the rescue of the prisoners from the "Altmark." These things have been made public, and due credit has been rightly given to the officers and men who have taken part in these enterprises, but we should not be fair in our admiration of the work of His Majesty's Navy if we did not fully realise that hour after hour, day by day, and week by week, every unit in the Navy, large and small, under the most arduous conditions of this terrible winter, have all equally fulfilled their duty in the most efficient manner possible. There is no doubt that the great sea traditions of the past have been nobly upheld by all ratings in the Navy at the present time. The same spirit which animated the seamen of the past exists in our men to-day, and will continue to exist in this struggle, however arduous and long it may be. There is no doubt that the nation can rely implicitly upon the whole of the personnel of His Majesty's Navy to render a good account of itself, whatever may come for the remainder of the war. But the issue does not entirely depend on the personnel. The trouble is that, in post-war years due to our policy of the reduction of armaments and the signing of the London Treaty, to which reference has already been made, having tied our hands, we are, as usual deficient in those cruisers, destroyers, and small craft so absolutely essential for the efficient protection of our trade routes. The cry has always been, as it was in the days of Nelson, for frigates. It was so in the last war. There was a scarcity of destroyers, and the convoy system had to be put off because of the shortage of small craft. There is the same shortage to-day, and the sooner the nation is able to provide the Navy with an abundance of these craft the greater will be the security which can be given to His Majesty's Mercantile Marine who, in the final issue, is the service on whom we depend for the further prosecution of the war.
The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty said that a battle fleet was necessary. Of course it is. I realise that the battle fleet to-day is very antique, and out of date, and that we have to bring new battleships into being. At the same time, I hope that a black-out will be put across the construction of those monstrosities, the 40,000-ton battleships, because they are not

necessary. It is a waste of time and money to construct these huge vessels, and it would be much better to spend the money on smaller battleships or on increasing the number of small craft. With regard to the Naval Air Arm, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Portsmouth (Sir R. Keyes) referred to the fact that the whole of the coastal patrol had to-day nothing to do with the Admiralty and that the Admiralty had no say in the matter of their training or operation. I agree with what he said about the absolute necessity of turning the coastal patrol over to the Admiralty in order to get the maximum efficiency from it. It is a purely naval matter, and I regretted at the time when the alteration took place that the Admiralty did not stand up for a complete turnover of all the aircraft which were required for naval operations. There is a point which I would like to make with regard to trade protection. Aircraft play an important part in this protection, particularly in reconnaissance work in the open sea. Aircraft are able to cover an immense area of the ocean very quickly and to provide valuable information to the cruisers and so on which are out on the trade routes. It would assist very materially in the protection of our trade if we constructed small aircraft carriers for that purpose.
I was very disturbed to hear what the First Lord had to say about Scapa Flow. As I understood him, Scapa Flow is not in a position to be used. It is appalling to think that after six months of war the greatest harbour that we have for our Fleet in this country is still not in a position to be utilised by the Fleet. It is beyond one's comprehension why such a thing should be. During the whole of the last war Scapa Flow was used, and it never came into anybody's mind, as far as I know—and I spent two years there, on and off—that once you got inside at anchor you were in any real danger of attack by submarine. I realise that to-day there is the extra danger of attack from the air, but that danger exists anywhere along the coast. It seems an extraordinary position that we cannot place at Scapa Flow sufficient anti-aircraft guns and means for countering or warding off attacks by aircraft. We have been told by the First Lord that the ships at our disposal have to put in an immense amount of sea time. That has


two effects. It causes a tremendous strain on the ships themselves. I have in mind particularly the old destroyers and the smaller ships. On account of that strain it is vitally important that we should increase the number of destroyers. Then there is also an immense strain on the personnel, conscious or unconscious. They may not think about it, but hour by hour and day by day when a ship is at seaunder modern conditions of war there can be no relaxation on the part of the officers and men who are on watch. They never know at any hour or minute when they may be subject to attack. That is a tremendous strain, and I suggest that when these ships come into harbour full opportunity should be taken to send the officers and men on leave, if it is for only 48 hours, to break the normal routine of the ship and to let them go home to be in another atmosphere and in different surroundings. It would be an immense help to the officers and men to stand the severe strain through which they have to go by being constantly at sea.
I must add my tribute to those which have already been paid to the efficient service and willing devotion to duty of the officers and men of His Majesty's Mercantile Marine. Nothing could exceed the efficiency of that service, and the only desire of the men after a ship has been sunk is to ask for another ship and wonder when they can be taken on again. It is common practice to talk about the fighting Services, but it rarely comes into the minds of the British public when they do so to think of anything other than the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The Mercantile Marine is not a fighting Service in the true sense of the term. The ships are permitted to carry armaments only for their own defence, but under the conditions of warfare carried out by Germany, with all its brutalities and its negations of international law, without any respect for humanity, it is true to say that there is no Service which has been more in the firing line and at the front in this war than that magnificent body of men in the Mercantile Marine.
We are suffering very greatly from lack of tonnage to carry on the trade of this country to import the things that are necessary for the prosecution of the war and to export those things which are

necessary to pay for our imports. That is reaping the whirlwind where we sowed the wind by neglecting in the post-war years to maintain an efficient and sufficient Mercantile Marine for our needs in time of war. I am sorry to say that we let down our Mercantile Marine, and therefore it is absolutely essential that the whole effort of the country shall be employed not only in building new ships for His Majesty's Navy but in building, up to the limit of our capacity, and using every shipyard available, new ships for the Mercantile Marine. It is a truism to say that it is upon sea power, in which term is included His Majesty's Navy and His Majesty's Mercantile Marine, that we depend ultimately for our security. Any weakening in that greatest link in our Imperial chain will mean a weakening of our effort, and if it were destroyed it would mean the destruction of ourselves and the whole of the Empire.
In connection with the construction of new units of the Mercantile Marine which the Admiralty is now undertaking I hope that, apart from the size and type of ships which it is decided to build, particular attention will be paid to the amenities provided for the officers and the men who will have to serve in those ships. They ought to have the greatest possible comfort when carrying out their very arduous duties on board. It should be remembered that there is no comparison at all between the amenities provided in all ships of His Majesty's Navy of the size of about a light cruiser, with their drying rooms, hot and cold baths all day and all night, hot meals all day and all night, warm mess rooms, and every other convenience, and the conditions which exist in the Mercantile Marine. Now that the Admiralty have undertaken the construction of new merchant ships, I beg the Parliamentary Secretary to see that they do their utmost to provide the best possible amenities for the officers and men in all those ships. The nation can undoubtedly rely upon these two great sister Services. The one is really of no use without the other; together they form what we know as sea-power. The more we can increase the number of our ships, the greater the protection we can give to the sister Service, the Mercantile Marine, and the more certain and the sooner shall we be able to bring this war to a satisfactory conclusion.

8.49 p.m.

Sir Annesley Somerville: I have been for some time the only back-bench representative of this side. If a stranger looked in, he would say how little interest the House of Commons takes in the Royal Navy, but the truth would be the exact opposite. We are engaged in the traditional service of providing funds for the senior of His Majesty's Services. We do not know how much we are providing, but we are providing all that is necessary according to the White Paper. The traditional function of this House is to air grievances, to bring forward complaints, before granting supplies, and if there are no complaints, then it is not necessary for the Members of this House to attend. Well, there have been practically no serious complaints to-day, and therefore the emptiness of the House is a testimony to the trust which is shown by the House in the Navy and to the manner in which the Admiralty is carrying on its duties, and that is really the meaning, I take it, of the state of the House at the present time.
We had a crowded House to listen to the speech of the First Lord of the Admiralty. In that speech he said that the Government were getting tired of one thing, and that he himself was getting tired of it. I was glad to hear him make that remark. What they are getting weary of is the one-sided use which is being made by the Germans of neutral territorial waters while at the same time they cry out whenever we appear to make any sort of misuse of those waters. The First Lord said that the neutral nations seem to attach more importance to possible slight breaches of neutrality than to the sinking of scores of their own ships and the drowning of hundreds of their own seamen, and that is a point which the neutral nations would do well to ponder.

8.51 p.m.

Mr. Robert Gibson: The topic before us is one which is of great interest to the constituency which I represent. So far as naval matters are concerned, if not in active engagements yet in association with the shore, the centre of gravity has shifted rather to the West, and Greenock is seeing a very great deal of the Navy and of naval men in these days. The people of Greenock are responding to the call upon their work and energies in that connec-

tion and I have very good reason to know that the relations which are thereby engendered are most happy. The people of Greenock, for reasons that I shall not disclose to the House, took a very great interest in a certain broadcast concert to naval men, a concert in which Gracie Fields was taking part.
We in Greenock are interested in the Mercantile Marine. Many of the dwellers in Greenock are men who go down to the sea in ships. There was an incident recently in my own experience which indicated the shortage of men for the Mercantile Marine. There called upon me in Edinburgh a man from Greenock who had been shipwrecked. He had been a stoker on a vessel. As I talked with him and endeavoured to comfort him in the difficulties in which he found himself, I learned to my amazement that he was not a man who had been bred to the sea but normally earned his living in another calling. He was by occupation a compositor in the printing trade, but through lack of employment there he was out of a job and had readily accepted work as a stoker on board a vessel sailing from Greenock.
That is rather an illuminating fact, and one upon which I could ponder and for which I could draw very obvious inferences. But I pass from that topic to consider one which for long has been a burning question in Greenock. It concerns the men who are employed in the shipbuilding and ship-repairing industry in and around Greenock. Hon. Members know that I have repeatedly called attention to this question, and I am rather amazed that during the last month the relevant figures and facts dealing with this situation have been excluded from the pages of the Official Report. On 1st February, I put a Question to the Minister of Labour asking for the figures. The reply was that they were not available but that they were being looked out. I have in my hand a communication from the right hon. Gentleman's Department. It is dated 9th February of this year and gives these illuminating facts:
At 15th January, 1940, the number of insured men aged 16 to 64 in the shipbuilding and repairing industry recorded as unemployed at the Greenock Employment Exchange was 840 or 17·5 per cent. of the approximate number of men classified in the industry.
That is a matter that calls for some explanation. Those figures did not


appear in the Official Report. They were sent to me privately, and no later than Thursday of last week I put down a similar Question and did not get the figures. I was told that the figures were just the same as those which had been supplied to me already. That figure of 840 is alarming. My hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. David Adams) put down a Question for yesterday (Monday), to find out how many men formerly in the shipbuilding and ship-repairing industry who might have gone into other industries, particularly into municipal enterprises, might be withdrawn from those industries or enterprises and brought back into shipbuilding and ship-repairing. In a Supplementary Question, I asked about Greenock, where there are men in the shipbuilding and ship-repairing industry who do not require to be brought back from other industries. They are unemployed. That was the position at 15th January, 1940. The figure compared with 806, or 16.8 per cent. on 11th December,1939, which shows that the number of unemployed shipbuilders and ship-repairers in Greenock is going up.
In the words of the hon. Member who last spoke, that is a very serious grievance. Here are men in this most important business which is vitally important to us at the present time, but they are unemployed. We have had no explanation from the Government. The matter now lies in the Department of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, who is sitting on the Front Bench. I hope that he will look very carefully into this position and will see that it is rectified. The obvious rectification is the bringing into employment of these men in Greenock in this vitally necessary industry. The question is correlated with another which I have time and again brought before this House since I was elected at a by-election at the end of 1936. It relates to the Caird shipyard, which at that time was equipped but was not in use. It had been cast aside by Shipbuilders' Security, Limited. I have brought up this question of the utilisation of the Caird shipyard time and again, and different Government Departments have had their attention drawn to it, but nothing has been done. The answer of other Departments has been that the obvious use of the site was for ship build-

ing, and the matter has been turned down by them for that reason.
Strange to say, rather over a year ago a great deal of the equipment at that yard was sold. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to look into this question. Why was that equipment sold at a time when the international situation was difficult and was becoming delicate and dangerous? Why was this valuable asset at Greenock interfered with in a manner to create difficulty in making it readily available as a truly national asset and not as a private asset that had been put into cold storage? It would not have been so bad if it had remained in cold storage. Something very unfortunate was done at that time. I have reason to know, from moving among business men in and around Greenock, that much of the machinery at that yard was sold at a very low price. Some was sold at a higher figure, but it is not now available for the vital purpose of building ships.
Only yesterday I put a Supplementary Question to the Parliamentary Secretary about the Caird shipyard. His answer, which I did not gather at the time, but I saw it this morning in the Official Report, was that I might put down a Question with regard to it. I have framed a Question, but this evening I have a better opportunity of receiving his answer on the situation. What is to happen to the Caird shipyard? The matter is notorious in Greenock. This old shipyard built P. & O. liners for about a century. Just before the war it was enlarged. It occupies a central position in Greenock, and the enlargement of the shipyard necessitated great alterations. Parliamentary powers had to be obtained on representation made to the Parliamentary tribunal which inquired into the matter at that time. Caird is a household name in Greenock. The enlargement necessitated the alteration of streets, the taking down of houses, and the shifting, stone by stone, of one of the old churches in Greenock. It meant also the shifting of "Highland Mary's" grave. She was a friend of Robert Burns. That is what happened to make the Caird shipyard big, so that it might be possible to build in it ocean greyhounds.
The war came, but after the war the Caird shipyard, which had been sold to Messrs. Harland and Wolff, was stopped


from operating, and the Caird shipyard then became a great aching void in Greenock. It was so at the time of the by-election. It was a heart-sore. Why was it not being used? It was immobilised by that company which had decided that a certain proportion of the shipyards in Great Britain should not be used for their ordinary purposes; but the day when it was to be used was coming. That day has arrived. We have now in Greenock men who are unemployed, and we have the site there to employ those men. What are we to do about it? The Government are in control. They are responsible to the country, and in particular to the people of Greenock, who have seen before their own eyes this great and venerable asset thrust aside. The employment question in Greenock was very serious indeed in the days of the deep depression, largely because of this situation. Yesterday I was informed that the position was known and was being investigated, and then I received an invitation from the hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to put the Question down, so that I think I have said enough about the Caird shipyard.
We have in Greenock other works. So far as Admiralty work is concerned, Greenock is fortunately employed. There are ship-repairing yards that might quite easily be enlarged and equipped, but that will require certain financial assistance from the Government before these yards can be so altered as to be in a position to build the smaller ships which were mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member who spoke last but one. We have need of many things. I am glad of having had this opportunity of bringing the situation of the shipbuilding population in Greenock and the position of the Caird shipyard definitely and pointedly before the House at this time.

9.7 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Shakespeare): I should like to start by thanking sincerely hon. and right hon. Gentlemen in all parts of the House for the way in which they have received the Navy Estimates. I desire to thank, first of all, my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Sir A. Somerville) for his short interruption, in case "Lord Haw Haw" ever got hold of the news that during the dinner hour in the House of

Commons a large number of Members, as is their wont, went out to dinner.

Mr. Ede: We can get a dinner here.

Mr. Shakespeare: If anything had gone wrong and if there had been occasion to criticise severely our administration, the House might have been full even during the dinner hour. I am sure that my colleagues, the naval members of the Board, will be exceedingly gratified at the very kindly expressions of confidence from all parts of the House. I am also sure that when they see in the Press tomorrow morning the extent to which they have the confidence of this House and therefore of the country, it will give a sense of great gratification and a further inspiration to the whole Navy, officers and men, wherever they may be.
I thought my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty, who has made his apologies for his absence this evening, sat here almost as embarrassed at the references to himself as the sailor, one of the "Ajax" crew, who was given a bunch of flowers by a passing girl, and whose photograph was taken last Friday. Hon. Members who saw that photograph in the Press will appreciate his embarrassment. My right hon. Friend sat here something like that when he heard those remarks from all parts of the House. Hon. Members have paid a tribute to nearly all the personnel of the Navy, be they in large ships, cruiser squadrons, hunting squadrons, or mine-sweepers, but there is one branch to which I want to refer and to which my right hon. Friend asked me to refer, and that is the branch whose men provide food, refresh with water and supply with oil the whole of our Fleet. This essential work is performed by the men of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and the Mercantile Fleet Auxiliary. They do not come into the limelight, but they share the common dangers, and they enable the Fleet to function. Our gratitude is due to them for their unremitting toil.
I will try to deal with some of the points raised by successive speakers. I will not say that I will deal with all of them; if I do not, I will see that a letter is sent picking out a point and giving a full answer. I have chosen those which I think are largely of public interest. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) made one of his usual vigorous speeches giving his


warm approval of the Navy. As he is not here, I can say what I think about him—

Mr. Ede: That is not a very Navy-like spirit.

Mr. Shakespeare: I find that the whole Fleet, officers and men, have a very tender spot for the right hon. Gentleman. They have a very warm regard for him, and frequently during discussions about Members of the House of Commons some officer who had been with him at the Admiralty pays very high tribute to him. I can say that in his absence. He raised a question which is in the minds of all of us: How can we, by some method or other, strengthen the means whereby the lives of the officers and ratings, always suffering hazards and dangers, can be saved when risks occur? For some time a very strong committee has been in existence to review all the conditions. I would point out that every one of the personnel of the Royal Navy has his own safety device, a belt. Appropriate ships are fitted in all cases with Carley floats, but this committee is examining in the light of the experience gained whether anything further can be done in the way of providing safety devices, and from time to time we receive reports indicating that that matter is being actively pursued.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough also asked how we are going to get a supply of officers during the war period. Both he and I are very keen on the question of promotion from the lower deck. I will be candid with the House and admit that four or five years ago the system of promotion was not working adequately. In my opinion there was not sufficient opportunity for promotion by merit. Since we took a particular interest in this question, two years ago, the whole system of promotion has been changed. Instead of allowing the men to study for the various examinations in their spare time, we now segregate them; there they are, selected, and they are given a thorough nine months' course under suitable conditions. The number of promotions from the lower deck is rising year by year. We are inviting to the House of Commons early in March to hear the Debates the 46 ratings who are now undergoing a course at Portsmouth, and they will come

and have a look at the House of Commons. I mention that figure to show how we are accelerating this process. That relates to those for whom the Navy is a permanent career.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: What age are these men?

Mr. Shakespeare: They are under 24. Now, how are we to meet the difficult question of finding officers during the war? It may surprise the House to know that this year—the first year of the war—some 5,000 temporary officers are required, and have been entered. About half of them are in the executive branch. These come from various sources. A large number come from the normal Naval Reserve for officers, the R.N.V.S.R. There were about 1,500 men in this Reserve, and 900 have been called up. Of the others, some came from the universities; some were selected because they had particular technical or professional experience. We reckon that this year in addition we shall want another 600 or 700, and we intend to take all those from the ranks of the Royal Naval Special Reserve, the "hostilities only" group, or the Royal Naval Volunteer ratings—which are the naval equivalent of the Territorial Army. There will be a very wide field for promotion from the lower deck. Taking into account the Fleet Air Arm and the executive branch of the Navy, we hope to take about 700 of these ratings, and to enter them for commissions this year. Next year, I should say, the minimum number of commissions will be about 1,000, and all those entered will come from those groups that I have mentioned. Here is a very great chance of promotion by merit.

Mr. Ede: Will all branches of these various Reserves be eligible? I wrote to the hon. Gentleman about a gentleman whom I know who, because he lived in a Midland town, could enter the Navy only as a telegraphist, although he belonged to the Reserve, and at one time he was barred from applying for a commission. Is that bar being removed now that these men have actual experience of Service conditions?

Mr. Shakespeare: What I have said applies to practically all branches.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: How are these 600 or 700 men who are to get commissions to be assessed?

Mr. Shakespeare: I will answer that question as shortly as I can. The scheme was announced a month ago. Broadly, it is this. Any temporary rating, when he goes to a training establishment, can have a confidential report started; then he goes to sea, and, after three months at sea, he is eligible to be considered for a commission. From the first day on which he joins the training establishment he comes under consideration, and within six to nine months he is eligible for a commission.

Mr. A. Jenkins: The Minister mentioned 5,000 commissions that are being given this year, and then he went on to say that 500 or 600 are to come from the lower deck. Are they the only officers who will come from the lower deck, and will the remainder of the 5,000 be recruited from other sources?

Mr. Shakespeare: I am sorry that I did not make myself quite plain. Those 5,000 officers have been required in the first year of the war. I went on to say that 600 or 700others will be required, and that those will be taken from the categories I mentioned, and from the lower deck.
The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Horabin) said some nice things about the Navy, and even about the Admiralty. He said that he got his letters answered quickly. I think it is important to see that letters are answered punctually. The staff at the Admiralty take a pride in giving a full answer as soon as possible. On behalf of the Admiralty staff, I thank the hon. Member for paying that tribute. He can be sure that his letters will be answered as quickly in future. I may add that, under the leadership of my right hon. Friend, we are all learning the urgency of settling problems as soon as may be after they arise. I hope that we are also learning to speak and write better English under his tuition.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Major Neven-Spence), the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Ritson), in his inspiring speech, and the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) referred to salvage. Let me tell the House what has been done in that respect. Some time ago, a new salvage department was started at the Admiralty, under a very competent head, and we are taking over control of all the

existing salvage associations or companies, on an agency basis. If there are any shortcomings, we shall try to make them good. We shall try to strengthen the organisation. We are building or acquiring new vessels. I do not think it is true to say that there are no vessels on the East coast. I shall be very pleased to tell my hon. Friend what they are. He asked where "Bertha" and "Metinda" are now. I am not sure that it is in the public interest, or in their interest, to say; but "Bertha" has been completely refitted, and "Metinda" is very nearly ready.
I should be very pleased to look into the point raised by the hon. Member for Durham with regard to a particular ship. I agree that, if possible, we should try to salvage her. We have already salvaged nearly 30 trawlers and merchant ships. It is well worth doing; but it must be realised that in war time it is much more difficult to do so than in peace time. Subject to that, I agree with what has been said by the three hon. Gentlemen. The hon. Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Watson) raised the question of Rosyth Dockyard and of what we were going to do with it after the war. I am afraid I cannot look as far ahead as that, but I will promise the hon. Member a very busy time for his constituency during the currency of the war.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Portsmouth (Sir R. Keyes) raised, not for the first time, the question of the Fleet Air Arm, and advised the Admiralty to take charge of the Coastal Command. I think we have our hands full at the present moment. A question like that is one of large policy, which can be settled only by the War Cabinet, but, as far as the Coastal Command and ourselves are concerned, our relations remain very friendly. There is day-to-day co-operation; I was going to say there is co-operation at every moment. In the Admiralty at present there are officers from the Air Ministry in close touch with the Coastal Command, so that immediately messages come through, the Navy and the Coastal Command can co-operate. I am sure there has been no war in the past where the relationship between the Services has been so close and intimate.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: The question of maximum efficiency is the real point.

Mr. Shakespeare: You cannot get everything you want in this world. Every naval man would like the whole charge of the Air Force, but we came to a compromise two or three years ago, and by that the Admiralty abides. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Rear-Admiral Beamish), in his very charming speech, raised the question of the pensioner coming back and asked if there was any chance of getting relief. I must make another reservation here due to the shortage of our personnel in relation to our duties, but it is our intention to relieve the older pensioners at sea—all those above 48 years of age—as soon as may be. It will not, however, be operationally possible to carry that out all at once. That will be done over a year.

Rear-Admiral Beamish: I made a further appeal in regard to financial support for the training of small boys.

Mr. Shakespeare: I will look into that. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor) stressed the great importance of small craft, with which anyone associated with the conduct of the war must heartily agree. I should be very happy to give him, or any other Member, the figures of our production, but I would rather not give them in public. I can say broadly, however, that if I gave him the increase in the number of our hunting craft to-day as compared with six months ago, and if I gave him the increase six months hence as compared with to-day, it would warm the cockles of his heart. My hon. and gallant Friend raised a point which I consider of supreme importance, that is, to give the men who come in from the hunt the maximum relaxation. No one knows, except those who have had an opportunity of visiting the Home Fleet and seeing some of these destroyers, what times they may be going through, and we have made arrangements and given orders that when the crews come in from the arduous time they are having, in all weathers and subject to every conceivable risk, the boiler work, engine work, and repair of the ships is to be taken over by bodies of workmen or naval personnel all ready where that is possible, and the crews are to be given the utmost relaxation.
The only other point I have here was raised by my hon. and gallant Friend

the Member for Epsom (Sir A. Southby). I want to cross swords with him on one point that he made. He used the word "luck" in connection with the River Plate action. I think he said it was a lucky action. I have a few remarks to make about that word. That victory was due, in the opinion of those who have studied the engagement, to two things. The first was the very efficient peace-time training that our squadrons had had. Captain Bell at the Guildhall said that, once the action was engaged, no further signal was given by Admiral Harwood to the cruisers. He was really carrying out in practice the theory that he had so often lectured upon at the Naval Staff College at Greenwich, and for once in a while theory and practice accorded.

Sir R. Keyes: I hold no brief for my hon. and gallant Friend, but I think probably he meant lucky, because one salvo of 11-inch guns would have sunk any one of those cruisers, just as one salvo sank the "Invincible." I am sure he only meant lucky in that way.

Mr. Shakespeare: Then I must have misunderstood him. It may well be that. He may have been repeating the sentiments of Captain Woodhouse, who said that to have a sunny day and an open sea made him the envy of the Navy, and to that extent it was a very lucky ship. But the main reason why we won that battle was, first of all that the training was good and, secondly, that we have something which is worth more than a well equipped cruiser. We have that spirit of the Navy traditionally there. I should like to give one or two examples of this spirit of the Navy—this spirit of daring, what they call the "Nelson touch," because it was that that won the battle. Why should the "Graf Spee," that ship of superior calibre, when it had got the "Exeter" almost knocked out, with only one gun left, turn and fly before two little six-inch cruisers unless there was something in the enormous moral superiority of the personnel? Take the "Altmark." I wonder whether the country has fully appreciated that it was 20 men armed with fists, with, I believe, a boy-scout knife, a hatchet, and bayonets who mastered 130 armed German seamen. Can anyone conceive of 130 British seamen in a ship being attacked and mastered by 20 German sailors? That is what one means by moral superiority. It is that intangible


asset which is going to win this war. As Napoleon said, the moral is to the material as three to one.
I should like to give one or two examples that I have come across in my visits to the Fleet during the last Recess. I was in a big capital ship which had been engaged in the ceaseless hunt before Christmas for the "Deutschland." Everybody was keen on getting the "Deutschland" as a Christmas present for the nation. One night after dusk it was bruited abroad that a light had appeared on the horizon, and it was conceivable that it might be the "Deutschland." Every man in the ship rushed to some point of vantage. The Maltese steward boy, aged 15, who was in a hot bath, rushed up into 20 degrees of frost, in a freezing gale, and stood naked on the pompom deck while he surveyed what to him was the Mecca of his dreams, but what turned out to be a mirage. Imagine the keenness and enthusiasm of that ship's company when at last they learned that they were face to face with the ''Deutschland."
Let me give the House another example. A capital ship was damaged, and it came into a certain port to dock. It was badly down, and to get it on to an even keel some 350 tons of ballast was put into the after part of the ship. Before the ship could be repaired the ballast had to be turned out, and with the men available the captain was told that it would be a 24-hour job to get the ballast out of the ship. The ship could not afford to wait 24 hours, and the ballast had to be got out as urgently as possible. The captain appealed to the ship's company, and, led by the chaplain, they took their coats off, metaphorically speaking and in an hour and a half the job was done. That shows the spirit of the men of the ship's company. I will give one other example, if I am not tiring the House. It concerns fishermen, the men not in uniform but "men with scarves." It was a Grimsby trawler that had been bombed and its decks riddled by machine gun. The captain and the mate were killed, and when the ship's company came into port every man volunteered immediately for service in the next available trawler. As long as we have that spirit there is no doubt as to the final issue of the war.
I agree with so many Members who have spoken to-day who have said that

the country has learnt to appreciate the Navy as probably never before in our history. It is not only the people of this country who have realised that the Navy is their lifeblood, but I think, too, it is the people of the Dominions who have seen the safe convoying by the Royal Navies of Dominion troops from across the other side of the world. I had the wonderful experience of being present at a northern port on the arrival of the second Canadian detachment. The Canadians told me that the most wonderful experience in their lives was when they approached these shores. It was a day of low visibility and cloud. Suddenly the mist cleared, and through the mist loomed the great capital ships and the squadrons and flotillas of the Home Fleet bringing to them a feeling of comfort, security, protection, and might. Hon. Members who were versed, as I was when a boy, in Bible stories, will remember how Elisha was once surrounded in the city of Dothan when the King of Assyria came down and compassed the city roundabout, and how Elisha lifted up his eyes and prayed to God, and lo, the mountains were filled with horsemen and chariots of fire. And so I felt it was with regard to those Canadians in their homecoming, encompassed as they were with the hazards of the deep. There appeared the spectacle of the Royal Navy as the symbol of the majesty of sea-power and of the welcome of the British nation.

Mr. Ede: Is the hon. Gentleman going to say anything about the point which was raised by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Greenock (Mr. Gibson) and myself, about absorbing the unemployed shipwright labour that is available in various parts of the country?

Mr. Shakespeare: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding me. There are two points. The first is that of the shipyard itself. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that there is now a conference going on between the Admiralty and the Ministry of Labour as to the further capacity to be used for our shipbuilding programme, and he will not expect me to anticipate the decisions of that conference, in which the employers and the trade unions themselves are cooperating. The question of labour is one of our most anxious problems, and I was very interested in the speech of the hon.
Gentleman about the unemployment conditions in certain shipyards at South Shields, Sunderland, and elsewhere. The particular case brought to my notice related to a firm engaged mainly in repair work. The man who works on repair work works all out for long hours for several days, and then takes it easy for a few days. It may have been also that it was the bad weather, but if there is any unemployed skilled shipwright in this country who is not doing a full day's work within a very short time, I shall be very much surprised. If hon. Gentlemen with a knowledge of the craft and of these skilled men, and the various organised bodies can help us at the Admiralty, either to absorb those who are now unemployed or to get back those who have left those unions into the shipyards, no one will be more grateful than the Admiralty. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman who mentioned these points will see me at the earliest opportunity and will co-operate with us, for their purpose is the same as ours, namely, to get the maximum out of the shipyards, and we can only do that by getting the maximum employment

Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.

Supply accordingly considered in Committee.

[SIR DENNIS HERBERT IN THE CHAIR.]

NUMBERS FOR THE NAVY.

Resolved,
That such numbers of Officers, Seamen, Boys and Royal Marines and of Royal Marine Police, as His Majesty may deem necessary, be borne on the books of His Majesty's Ships and at the Royal Marine Divisions, for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1941.

WAGES ETC., OF OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE ROYAL NAVY AND ROYAL MARINES, AND OF CERTAIN OTHER PERSONNEL SERVING WITH THE FLEET.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding 100, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Wages, etc., of Officers and Men of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines and of certain, other personnel serving with the Fleet, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1941.

ADDITIONAL NUMBERS FOR THE NAVY.

Resolved,
That such additional numbers of Officers, Seamen, Boys and Royal Marines and of Royal Marine Police, as His Majesty may deem necessary, be borne on the books of His Majesty's Ships and at the Royal Marine Divisions, for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1940.

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow; Committee to sit again To-morrow.

OLD AGE AND WIDOWS' PENSIONS [MONEY].

Resolution reported.
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to reduce to sixty the age at which women may become entitled to old age pensions under the enactments relating to widows', orphans' and old age contributory pensions; to provide for increasing certain contributions payable under those enactments; to make provision for supplementing, in cases of need, pensions payable under the said enactments to widows who have attained the age of sixty years, and old age pensions, and for making consequential adjustments in respect of the General Exchequer Grants payable to local authorities which are public assistance authorities; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid (hereinafter referred to as 'the said Act') it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament—

(a) of any amounts by which the sums payable into the Treasury Pensions Account under Sub-section (3) of Section fourteen of the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act, 1936, are increased by reason of the passing of the provisions of the said Act relating to women's contributory pensions;
(b)of any sums required for the payment to persons entitled to receive weekly payments on account of old age pensions and to persons who have attained the age of sixty and are entitled to receive weekly payments on account of widows' pensions, of supplementary pensions based on their needs and, except in the case of a supplementary pension granted upon an application made within two months after the first day of June, nineteen hundred and forty, to any person in whose case an order for outdoor relief was in force immediately before that date, based also on the needs of their households, regard being had to the resources of all members of the household other than such resources as may be excepted by the said Act;
(c) of any sums required for the payment of any expenses of the Unemployment Assistance Board attributable to the provisions of the said Act relating to supplementary pensions;
(d) of any expenditure which may result from the application to pensionable officers or servants of local authorities who become officers or servants of the Unemployment


Assistance Board of the rules in force under Section nine of the Superannuation Act, 1935, applicable to other persons who become civil servants, and from treating any pensionable officer or servant of a local authority who becomes an officer or servant of the Board within one year after the passing of the said Act, as a pensionable officer or servant of a local authority to which those rules apply."

Resolution agreed to.

MENTAL DEFICIENCY (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords].

Considered in Committee, and reported, without amendment; read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

EVACUATED CHILDREN AND EDUCATION.

Motion made and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Buchan-Hepburn.]

9.46 p.m.

Mr. David Adams: I desire to raise the question of evacuation and education of which I gave notice over a month ago. Unfortunately, owing to the illness of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, I have been unable until this time to raise the matter. Now, however, I am glad to see that the Parliamentary Secretary has fully recovered his competence to handle matters which I will raise. We have been discussing this afternoon the paramountcy of the Navy, and cognate matters, but in the judgment of many people interested in the welfare of the nation we have already suffered the first great loss in the war—the lack of educational facilities for the children of the nation. During the last five months the majority of the children have been without adequate education and, in my judgment, they will never recover. They have lost their chances of secondary education and many who would have occupied a position in the ranks of the finest craftsmen in the world will find themselves merely unskilled labourers, and the upper ranks of learning will have suffered substantially during this long and unnecessary interregnum, for few of these neglected pupils will enter there! I have made

inquiries through friends in neutral countries, and I appear to be credibly advised that in the belligerent countries no such situation has prevailed; that in the great German towns, in cities and hamlets, school children have not lost a single day's education!
I think it will be admitted by the House that one of the imperious necessities after the termination of the war will be an educated democracy. The competition which will ensue will inevitably be greater than it has been in the past, and while it is true to say that Waterloo was won on the fields of Eton, it is equally true to say that the Waterloos of the future will be won by the industrial classes, for they will, or ought to be, the educated classes. My complaint is that when evacuation took place there was no proper provision made for the evacuees, even in the safe areas, nor was there provision for milk, meals, medical and dental inspection and treatment. So far as the evacuation areas were concerned, all education terminated and the children were deprived of their natural rights. In these areas, in September, parents were given the option of retaining their children and availing themselves of it. Therein there was an immediate cessation of all interest in educational matters. For some reason, in these areas, also milk supply, medical inspection and free meals were terminated, and have not, up to the present, been resumed.
It is interesting to note that the President of the Board of Education, speaking about a week ago, said that the need for school attendance was the chief concern at the moment and that the problem of the danger areas was to do something for 1,250,000 children who had to be got back to schol as quickly as possible. He appears only to have discovered that that was the initial responsibility upon his Department and had been from the beginning of evacuation. There is little doubt that the Board of Education were pushed aside, whether voluntarily or otherwise, at that time. The schools were handed over for military or A.R.P. requirements I notice that some 55 of the Board's inspectors were diverted to other purposes and that 663 of the staff were loaned elsewhere. There was a virtual resignation of the Board of Education. With regard to evacuation itself, it


was anticipated that some 3,000,000 might be evacuated, but, in fact, only 1,250,000 went. By the end of last year some 43 per cent. had returned, and I understand that to-day only 400,000 are in the safe areas.
The way in which parents have exercised the choice which is given them is very significant. In Leeds, 26 per cent. of the children remained and in Sheffield 17½ per cent. In Glasgow 70 per cent. returned, Newcastle-on-Tyne 75 per cent., Aberdeen about 75 per cent. and London, which did rather well, some 34 per cent. In my judgment many of the difficulties would not have arisen if evacuation had been carried out by the Board of Education and not by the Ministry of Health, and if the billeting authority in the reception areas had been the education authority. It should not have been merely a question of safety; it ought to have been, in the judgment of all persons interested in education, an educational matter of prime moment also. We had the spectacle of expectant and nursing mothers being mixed up with evacuees, all of which tended to create the confusion and chaos which undoubtedly prevailed.
In September it was quite apparent to everyone that large numbers of children had remained in the evacuation areas, and that immense numbers had returned. We are entitled to ask, why did the Board of Education not resume the education of these children? In my own city of Newcastle-on-Tyne, out of 1,400 teachers all except 18 went to the reception areas, but none of these was at any time invited by the Board to return and give some education to the thousands of school children in Newcastle. They were permitted for months to roam the streets living many of them, in shoddy slums, frequent unsafe cinemas, anywhere but in the schools, which were well built and relatively safe, where discipline was possible and where education should have been continued. The Board clearly shirked its duty to the children and to the State. No serious effort was made to induce parents to keep or to send children into the safe areas; yet the dangers of these movements between danger and safety areas were undoubtedly very great. There was a rapid drift back, owing to a variety of reasons, to danger areas. Everyone knows that

it is fatal to any efficient system to have a shifting school population, for staffing depends upon numbers, and this dribbling to and fro had an unsettling effect upon the children and teachers alike in the safe areas, where there was some pretence being made to give part education.
Compulsory education, however limited in its application, should never have been abandoned by the Board of Education. A Board, with a sense of its obligations, would never have permitted such an abandonment. There appears to have been great weakness and vacillation, nothing carefully thought out. In my judgment there is no question that if parents had originally been advised that children would require to be left in the safe areas till the end of the term with a term's notice they would have agreed. The Board of Education made no effort to get such authority from parents. If the Board had simply declared that children in the safe areas must remain there for the sake of their safety and their education, no intelligent parent would have rejected it.
Then with regard to the disguised compulsion which was being applied to parents to send their children to the safe areas. We have seen how the Board positively declined to give any education whatever, although the bulk of the nation's children were in the evacuation areas. It is interesting to notice what the Times Educational Supplement of 6th January has to say upon this subject:
The futility of trying to maintain the present educational system without some measure of compulsion is to be seen in the case made by the chairman of the London County Council Educational Committee in a letter to the Editor of the 'Times' quoted on page 5. He says in effect that education in the evacuation areas must not be made too good lest children return from the reception areas to enjoy it. This amounts to a declaration that pressure will be brought on parents to keep their children away by providing third-rate education for the children who never went away. If this is not compulsion, what is? But it is dishonest compulsion. Parents who wish their children to stay for the next term in their reception area should be compelled to keep them there the whole time.
That was said in January. It might have been said with equal truth in February, when the situation was becoming more acute. With respect to billeting, the Minister of Health has


indicated twice or thrice very clearly that this was to be the basis of the children's existence in the reception areas. This has failed to an alarming extent. It will be intolerable to many of the billetees if the war is. protracted, and it should be ended by the provision of communal schools after the type of boarding schools, either in large country houses, or by the building of many more camps where teachers and scholars can be better housed. Teachers should be left to their educational responsibilities and voluntary members engaged for domestic requirements. My experience of the conditions of many of our teachers who have returned from the reception areas is that they have suffered intolerable hardships, mental and physical, and in many cases they have been called upon to work all the hours of daylight in looking after the children. In the safety zones, adequate provision should be made for communal education. I maintain, as I think the Board of Education must agree, that this adequate provision can be made, not in the cottage homes or in the few schools that are to be found in many of these areas, but only in adequately-equipped institutions. Has there been a survey of such institutions in the areas where the evacuated children are? Has there been a survey of community schools, large country houses, public buildings, halls and camps built specially for residential schools, where life can be developed, if necessary alongside a certain amount of private billeting? With regard to camps, we know that there are 31 in England and five in Scotland, but there has been no urgency on the part of the Ministry of Health in this matter. These camps may be a good experiment, but the Ministry are dealing with them with the greatest timidity. Before the war there was ample time to prepare adequate boarding schools in camps or large halls.

Mr. Magnay: Does the hon. Member say that before the war there was time to do this?

Mr. Adams: In my opinion, the condition of affairs in Europe, at any rate during the 12 months before the war, ought to have caused the education authorities to consider the steps that would require to be taken in the event of an outbreak of war. I have noticed the

opinions on the new plan for evacuation that have been expressed to the Board of Education by the evacuation committee of the Association of Architects, Surveyors and Technical Assistants. They complain that nothing has been done, they say that there ought to be provided facilities for full-time education and communal feeding, and they estimate that a complete scheme for the whole country would cost approximately £70,000,000. The amount of building work that has been stopped by the war is about seven times that figure. Many builders are bankrupt, brickyards are idle, architects are unemployed. Icon tend that there was an opportunity to make adequate provision, and indeed, if there was not an opportunity, there is one now. We have recently been dealing in this House with vast sums. I do not think that a large sum of money could be voted for any better peace-time purpose than the education of our children. In addition to the provision of facilities in the safety areas, every school in a danger area ought to have full air-raid protection. At last once again attendance is to be made compulsory. I think we are entitled to ask the Parliamentary Secretary when he anticipates that education will be fully resumed.
As to precautionary measures, I should like to give the House an illustration of the situation in Newcastle. In that city, one-third of the schools are in the danger area contiguous to the arsenals and the riverside. I know of one case on Tyneside where 60 children are being educated in a large school. Those children have been instructed to run home if raiders come. The homes in that town are very much inferior, from a structural point of view, to the school, since many of them are in three- and four-storeyed tenements. The education authority there appears to take the view—"Be killed, but not on our hands; all must leave the school."
As to the next evacuation, it is to take place when the danger is upon us. Is it likely to be successful? From what has occurred, we may well conclude that the mass of parents will take the risk, and that large numbers of the children who are at present evacuated will return home and stay there until the Government hoist the danger signal. The parents have been invited to agree to send their


children to the reception areas in the event of bombing, but they need not give a definite promise to do this. There again, the Board display their timidity by stating that parents need only express an intention—and not give a definite pledge—to leave the children in the reception areas until the school party returns. It will not prevent the children dribbling home again, as the parents are not to be specifically pledged to leave them in the reception areas.
The Board are agreed that education shall be compulsory. They ought to insist that it shall be accepted, and that the children must be left for safety and education until the end of the term, with a term's notice from the parents that the children may be withdrawn. This requires from the parents, not a written undertaking, a most difficult thing to obtain, but merely an injunction from the Board, which ought to have been given in September, to the parents that the interests of the State and of the children in the matter of education and safety demand that the children shall be left in the safety areas. Those are the ends to which the Government ought to direct their circulars, their interviews and their authority. This matter should be the responsibility of the Board of Education. It should not be left as an option or obligation upon the parents.
In view of the fact that the children have been deprived of education for many months, during the hibernation of the Board, we are entitled to ask that the Board shall now restore the educational services, fully and quickly, in evacuation, neutral and reception areas alike. We ask them to end at the earliest possible moment the grave physical, moral and mental injury which has already been done and which, in my judgment, will have repercussions to the detriment of the State. By the sincere and prompt exercise of the great powers which the Board possess, they may recover some of the lost ground but only if they recognise the imperious necessity of equal whole time education in evacuation, neutral and reception areas alike, and upon which the welfare and future progress of these citizens depends.

10.17 p.m.

Mr. Sexton: I live in a reception area to which many of the children from the

Newcastle district were evacuated and I saw something of the chaos which prevailed at one time, under the first evacuation scheme. Many complaints have been uttered about the failure to make preparations, before the outbreak of war, both in the evacuation and the reception areas. When there are murmurings such as we have heard, some of them are usually found to be justified. The Government must take their share of responsibility for the complaints which are justified in this case and the local authorities must take their share also. A more thorough survey ought to have been made of the number of school places available in the evacuation areas. Many country schools, like town schools, owing to the decline in the birth rate, had numbers of vacancies. Where practicable, only the number of children for whom there were places should have been evacuated to these various districts. All sorts of things—many of them grossly untrue—havebeen said about this subject. It has been said that the children did not want education. I put the children first, as I believe that to be their proper place and my experience in the area in which I live was that the desire of the children for school life was shown by the readiness of their attendance at school. It would be interesting to have a report to the Board from the officers whose duty it was to examine the causes of non-attendance at schools during the period of evacuation.
I question whether there would have been 1 per cent. of frivolous excuses, or wilful absenteeism. There they were, children in a strange land, taught by teachers with different methods, in unfamiliar schools. I think that in the circumstances the pupils responded manfully to the call of education. From the parents' point of view it is true that in vulnerable areas they thought first of the physical safety of their offspring. After all, it is one of nature's first laws to ensure the survival, the safety, and the preservation of the offspring.
The safety and preservation of mental ability depend first and foremost on the well-being of the physical body. That has been recognised by the Board in the institution of school meals and physical training. We have begun to believe more and more in the maxim, "A sound mind in a sound body." Some parents were


afraid that their boys and girls, especially between 10 and 11 years of age, would suffer in the examinations for a secondary school. Their fears, I believe, were largely unfounded, but it was difficult to persuade the parents that children coming to rural areas with primitive schools with earth playgrounds and antedeluvian furniture would not suffer. I know what I am talking about, because I taught a rural school for many years before I came into this House. Parents could not be convinced that their bairns would receive such tuition as would enable them to pass the test; so they took the children home. They did not realise the attainments of many rural school children whom they left behind. Desirable as first-class buildings and appliances are, the chief factor in the final analysis is the teachers, and it is well known that rural teachers, in the main, are as capable craftsmen as town teachers. As a former teacher myself I am not foolish enough to claim that either the town teacher or rural teacher is superior. But both have worked together and co-operated in this difficult crisis, and, in my view, the best has been done in the circumstances for the education of the pupils.
To sum up, firstly, if adequate preparatory revision of the schools in the receiving districts had been made, and, secondly, a thorough knowledge of the billets, both homes and hosts, had been obtained, and, thirdly, and perhaps the most important of all, if there had been proper provision for after-school recreation, the scheme would have been more successful. Lack of attractions, which appeal to town folk, ought to have been an incentive for this provision of out-of-school activities.
My hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. David Adams) mentioned the teachers who had gone to the rural areas and asserted that they were going back fagged and worn out. I am not prepared to speak from that point of view, but I know that some of these teachers went back from the rural areas with their eyes opened to the lack of amenities in the rural areas. One good that may come out of the evacuation scheme is that in future the rural schools will receive the education which they deserve. I hope the Ministry of Health and the Board of Education are not resting on their tattered laurels, but that they are work-

ing out the details of a thorough system so that as early as possible as many children as possible shall receive full time education.

10.27 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education (Mr. Kenneth Lindsay): I must apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. David Adams) who, I know, has for the last three months been trying to make the excellent speech we have heard to-night. I wish that he had been able to get in at the end of last Session, because I could then have dealt with this question more in conformity with his speech. So much has happened since then that a large amount of it is ancient history. I am glad, however, that the hon. Member has raised the question because I consider it of the greatest importance and I wish there were a greater interest, even in the House, on the subject of rebuilding the educational system.
May I make a short answer to his point? It is that it is very easy to hold the views expressed to-night, but to put them back six months is not quite the same thing. None of us imagined that the war would develop on the lines that it has taken during the last six months. The local authorities were never prepared to face the issue of compulsion. That answers about one-half of the hon. Gentleman's speech. They were not prepared to face it, and there is no method of enforcing it. If the parents were prepared to stay there, good enough, but if they were determined to bring their children back, does my hon. Friend suggest that compulsion could have been imposed? What methods and what sanctions would he have adopted? Local authorities debated this question and they turned it down every time it was raised. I share my hon. Friend's view; I do not like the untidy system that was developing, of a mass of children in the evacuation areas and another mass in the reception areas. It made education temporarily a chaos, and it made it impossible to get a proper unit for secondary schools and all the things he has mentioned.
I must point out to my hon. Friend that evacuation is essentially a very human problem and there is a limit to the endurance of the persons in reception areas, who had all privacy in many cases


completely destroyed and whose lives are becoming at the present moment in many cases extremely fatiguing and difficult. On the other hand there are a great many people who said, "Air raids may come or not, but I am going to be with my nearest and dearest in an evacuation area." We were, therefore, faced with the problem that many parents were determined to take the risk after a certain time and others were prepared to be, perhaps, a little more careful and to follow the Government's advice by staying in the reception areas.

Mr. Adams: Will the Minister be good enough to explain why there was for months a complete abandonment of educational facilities in the evacuation areas?

Mr. Lindsay: The short answer is this: Very complete arrangements were made by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health for billeting the children in reception areas. Nobody could pretend that if all the children in the evacuation areas were to be billeted in the countryside it could have been done in camps, short of an expenditure of millions of pounds, and then it would have been a completely untried experiment. As my right hon. Friend said many times, the billeting must be in private homes when there was large-scale evacuation. I do not think there can be two opinions about that—unless, as the hon. Member suggested in one part of his speech, we had started 10 years before to build up a completely new system of camps and schools ready for the eventuality of war. The point is that I quite agree with my hon. Friend, and am tremendously interested in the possibilities which may came out of this chaos in our education system.

Mr. Adams: Will the Minister be good enough to explain why it was—this is the gravamen of my complaint—that although for months there were these vast numbers of children in the evacuation areas they were deprived of all education?

Mr. Lindsay: The answer is that we had made arrangements for the complete evacuation of the children, which was the Government's policy. In many cases the schools were in dangerous areas near docks, and in other cases it was impossible to use them because they had been

taken over for Civil Defence, for first-aid posts, and for a hundred and one other uses. As soon as it was apparent that parents were not prepared to take advantage of the Government's offer, we began relaxations. I announced them first in my speech here in November, and others were announced almost week by week. First, evening institutes and technical colleges were allowed to open and other relaxations were approved in neutral areas. Then, on nth November, we restored voluntary education in evacuation areas, and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Home Security sent out a circular urging local authorities to do so. It was the local authorities themselves who in most cases had used their schools for Civil Defence purposes. The hon. Member asks why we did not do more. The answer is that you cannot urge children (a) to go to a school which is not there, and (b) you cannot compel children to go to a school when you know there is danger. That is the short answer to the cinema versus schools point. It was apparent to all of us that children were congregating in cinemas and that something had to be done, but if people go to cinemas or gather in the streets they do so on their own responsibility. The case of the children who were killed in the Poplar school in the last war is well known to local authorities, and they were not prepared to take the risk of opening any school as long as there was not at any rate some primitive shelter for the children. That is the answer.
It is easy now to be wise when we are looking back. It may be that we should have gone faster, but how much faster? Ministers were sending out almost too many circulars—circulars every week. They met every day. There was a relaxation of restrictions literally week by week. If the hon. Member will read the paper which is the organ of the National Union of Teachers, or read the organ of the local education authorities, he will see not the sort of speech he has made tonight, but congratulations to various Ministers on the speed with which they had worked. There were communal meals to be arranged and nursery centres, and the evacuation charges ran into £500,000 a week. We do not regret that expenditure, we only say that it shows that a great deal was being done during that time, and as soon as there was a chance


of bringing back compulsory education, which means that there was a chance of children going back to school, half time if you like, it was announced by my right hon. Friend.
Those are the main points. May I put one further point? I have made it every time in our educational Debates. If you wish to surrender to the Board of Education complete control of education in this country, you can do it. It is easy enough for the Secretary of State for War, shall I say, to say: "We shall have camps throughout the country," and to give the order, but you cannot do that with 315 local education authorities each responsible in its own area. You can urge, bring pressure on, suggest, persuade and finally, do what my right hon. Friend did the other day, say: "This matter is one of urgency. We can no longer put up with delays."
One further point is that local education authorities in very few cases take the same view. Sheffield had 58,000 children out of 60,000 in Sheffield very soon after the war. London had a great majority of the children out; and thousands of children are still out, in wholly different circumstances. Are you going to say that we must have compulsion from the centre, and complete national regimentation, doing away with this variety, freedom, and flexibility in local education? Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to try that in Newcastle and on Tyneside? I do not think it would appeal to the people of Tyneside. I am going there in a few

weeks' time, to speak on the work of the National Youth Committee. I could not speak about the people outside Tyneside, but I believe they desire freedom for their local authorities.
I am glad that this subject has been raised to-night. The hon. Member has asked what the policy is. I will tell him. It is exactly as it was announced a few weeks ago. We wish to see full-time education for children between the ages of five and 14 in evacuation, neutral and reception areas in this country. We are taking every step with the Civil Defence authorities to get schools released. Tomorrow, for instance, I am going down to Luton, where there is a problem, in company with Sir Will Spens, the regional commissioner. The problem there is to get back the remaining 40 per cent. There are some difficult places. Places like London, Liverpool and elsewhere have a huge problem. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. Sexton) for sounding the praises of the rural teacher and the rural authorities. About them I shall have something to say next week. The mix-up of the child population and what people from the towns have learned in the country, have made evacuation not an unmixed blessing.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-One Minutes before Eleven o'clock.